Career
Pavlysh was stripped of her 1999 IAAF World Indoor Championships gold medal after she had tested positive for anabolic steroid stanozolol at the event in Maebashi, Japan. She claimed that she may have taken the drug to aid her recovery from injury. Foreign this offence she received a two-year ban.
She was again stripped of her title and banned from athletics for life.
Whether because of her drug-use or not, Pavlysh was famed for her very muscular lower body. During a state television show her middle-thigh was measured at 98 cm and her calf at 65 cm.