 She was born in Kharkiv and competed for the USSR in the 1988 Summer Olympics, where she placed third in the 4 x 400 metres relay heats with the team, but was substituted by Tatyana Ledovskaya in the finals.Four years later Dzhigalova competed for the Unified Team in the 1992 Summer Olympics held in Barcelona, Spain in the 4 x 400 metres where she won the gold medal with her team mates Yelena Ruzina, Olga Nazarova and 400m silver medalist Olga Bryzgina.She received a four-year ban from athletics after failing a drugs test, having been positive for steroids in an out-of-competition test.