Her first success came at the 1977 European Athletics Junior Championships, where she won the 800 m title. At twenty years old, reached the final at the 1980 Moscow Olympics and placed fourth in a lifetime best time of 1:56.21 behind a Soviet trio of Nadiya Olizarenko, Olga Mineyeva and Tatyana Providokhina that broke the world record. A successful 1981 season followed, which included a win at the 1981 European Cup, and at the 1981 IAAF World Cup she won an 800 m silver behind Lyudmila Veselkova and a gold with the East German 4 × 400 metres relay team. She ranked second in the world that year for the 800 m behind Vesselkova with a time of 1:57.16. That success continued into 1982 with a silver medal at the 1982 European Athletics Indoor Championships, finishing second only to Romania's Doina Melinte. She was top of the world indoor rankings that season with 1:59.24 minutes.