After winning bronze medals at the European and World Indoor Championships, Belevskaya successfully defended her Soviet title in July 1987 with her career-best jump of 7.39 metres. This jump put her fourth on the world all-time list at that time and as of 2017 still ranks her sixth on the all-time list. She went on to win a silver medal at the 1987 World Championships in Rome, finishing behind Jackie Joyner-Kersee and one centimeter ahead of Heike Drechsler, with 7.14 metres. At the 1988 Seoul Olympics, she jumped 7.04 metres to finish fourth in the final behind Joyner-Kersee, Drechsler and Chistyakova.