She ranked in the global top twenty-five for the discipline in 1984, recording a personal best mark of . Her sole international medal came at the 1985 IAAF World Cup, where she was a surprise winner with a throw of , beating East German champion (and future Olympic champion) Petra Felke and World Championships medallist Fatima Whitbread. Alongside Natalya Lisovskaya, she was only one of two Soviet female winners at the competition and helped her nation to second place in the team rankings. Gavrilova has only placed ninth at the Soviet Athletics Championships that year and brought an end to Felke's 26-meeting undefeated streak.