1994 was Kochetkova's breakthrough year. She won the Russian National Championships, the Goodwill Games all-around, and three individual medals at the World Gymnastics Championships in Brisbane: bronze in the all-around, behind Shannon Miller and Lavinia Miloșovici; gold on the floor exercise and another bronze on the uneven bars. Many experts and fans felt she was robbed of the 1994 World AA title due to a lack of reputation. Her bronze on uneven bars was also controversial with most believing she should have at least won silver above her teammate Khorkina, who the Russian federation was already favoring. Her rise escalated when she ended the two-year winning streak of Shannon Miller in AA competition by defeating her for the AA title at the 1994 Goodwill Games in Saint Petersbourgh. Kochetkova won three more medals (silver AA and team; bronze FX) at the European Championships and shared in the team bronze medal at the World Team Championships in Dortmund. However, by the Team World Championships she was suddenly finding herself outshone by rising teammate Svetlana Khorkina. Khorkina was even placed after her in the lineup on every event in Team Finals, due to favortism and bias by controversial Russian head coach Leonid Arkaev.