Career
Marina started the sport in 1977 at age 7. She had won the gold in the hoop competition and won bronze in the rope and clubs competitions during the 1987 World Championships yet At the All-around event found herself again behind 2 Bulgarian gymnasts placing her in 4th (tied with teammate Anna Kotchneva).
1988 found Lobatch battling to get into the medals again with a 4th place finish at the European Championships. The judges and audience adored her balletic lines, wonderfully expressive movements, and cutting-edge difficulty, but the Bulgarians-whose 80s heyday was coming to a close-- were still ahead in the race.
Her biggest success was during the 1988 Seoul Olympics. She had received perfect ten's on all of her routines during the qualifying and final rounds of the all-around competition. Her competitors had also received perfect scores during the finals, but had not received perfect scores in the qualifying round (qualifying scores were divided by two and added onto the final round scores). Their final scores were very close, with Lobatch receiving 60.000, Adriana Dunavska receiving 59.950, and Alexandra Timoshenko receiving 59.975.
She is the youngest Olympic Champion in rhythmic gymnastic with 18 years, 3 months and 6 days also despite never being crowned European or World All-around Champion. Marina retired in 1989 at the age of 19.
In 1993, she went to Lamezia Terme, Italy to prepare her gymnasts, Larissa Lukyanenko and Tatiana Ogrizko for the Italia Serie A. It was in Lamezia Terme that they trained for a little while, and they competed for the local club Gascal in the Serie A. Marina returned to Belarus in April 1994. In 1998 Marina was invited to Italy by the Gascal club, with her family she spent several weeks there.