Skalinskaya qualified for two swimming events at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, by clearing FINA B-standard entry times of 26.50 (50 m freestyle) and 58.00 (100 m freestyle) from the Kazakhstan Open Championships in Almaty. In the 100 m freestyle, Skalinskaya challenged seven other swimmers on the second heat, including three-time Olympian Agnese Ozoliņa of Latvia. She raced to second place and forty-first overall by more than a second behind winner Vanessa García of Puerto Rico in 58.56. In the 50 m freestyle, Skalinskaya placed thirty-ninth overall on the last day of preliminaries. Swimming in heat six, she edged out India's Shikha Tandon to take a fifth spot by 0.04 of a second, outside her entry time of 27.04.