Background
She was born in Ternivka, at the time in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union (today in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast of Ukraine).
She was born in Ternivka, at the time in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union (today in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast of Ukraine).
She finished eighth at the 2006 European Championships, fourth at the 2008 Olympic Games, second at the 2008 World Athletics Final, seventh at the 2009 World Championships.
She is a world top level 400 m hurdles runner. At European Athletics Championships 2010 in Barcelona, while she was in the warm-up area few minutes before the 1st round heat, she accused a muscular problem. Nevertheless, she ran her heat but did not proceed to semi-final.
Because of mentioned problem, she did not compete anymore during 2010.
In 2011 she obtained fifth position in the World Championships in Daegu, of Korea. 2011 season did not started successfully.
She definitely regained her position in the top list of 400m hurdles of 2011 on 3 August in Donetsk during the semifinal of the Ukrainian Championship by running in 54.75. This timing places her as 10th best athlete in the 2011 top list of 400m hurdles (See IAAF Top Lists at IAAF"s site).
As the preparation for 2011 season has been focused on the Daegu"s World Championships on late August 2011, it is possible that she has still some room to improve and that she will be a serious contender in Daegu.
In Daegu at World Championships 2011 she passed easily the heats obtaining the second position of her race with 55.08 behind Kaliese Spencer of Jamaica, being inserted in the second semifinals, the most challenging of the three semifinals whose formula promoted to final only first two athletes of each of those three races plus the two best timings among all other runners. Nevertheless, her timing of 55.06 resulted as the 2nd better timing among all the athletes not directly qualified to the final (she run 0001 secs faster than the first athlete excluded from the final, Perri Shakes-Drayton from United Kingdom) allowing her to reach the eight (and last) place in the final of World Championships 2011. In the final race, she run really well obtaining a very honorable fifth position with her Season Best of 54.18, improving two positions from the first final she participated at World Championships of Berlin 2009 where she arrived seventh.
She also competed at the 2007 World Championships without reaching the final, and also in the 4 x 400 metres relay at the 2009 World Championships.