Lysenko was born in Kherson, Ukrainian SSR, and has a Ukrainian-Jewish background. She took up gymnastics at the age of seven, and made her senior debut in 1990, winning the all-around competition at the World Cup. Next year she was selected for the world championships in Indianapolis, where she won the team competition. She qualified to the all-around competition, ahead of her talented teammates Oksana Chusovitina, Rozalia Galiyeva and Natalia Kalinina, but fell from beam and did not win any individual medal.