Russia's Adelina Sotnikova was a controversial winner of the women's singles figure skating event at Sochi 2014 ©Getty Images

Russia's Sochi 2014 women's singles figure skating champion Adelina Sotnikova has admitted she returned a positive doping test during the year of her Olympic triumph, but insisted she was cleared by her B-sample.

Sotnikova was a surprise winner of the women's singles at her home Winter Olympics nine years ago, becoming the first athlete from her country to win the event, although there was controversy surrounding scoring and judging as many felt the defending champion Yuna Kim of South Korea should have taken gold rather than silver.

Speaking on the Tatarka FM channel on YouTube, Sotnikova, who is now 27, discussed the Kamila Valieva doping case at Beijing 2022.

Valieva, who was 15 during last year's Winter Olympics, had already helped the Russian Olympic Committee to a team figure skating gold in the Chinese capital when insidethegames exclusively revealed she was at the centre of a doping scandal,

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) wants a four-year ban for Valieva, and an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport for further sanctions than those imposed by a Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) Disciplinary Committee is due to be heard in September.

During the interview, Sotnikova claimed she had tested positive in 2014 but was cleared by her B-sample.

"Remembering 2014, when after some time they said that they found doping in me," she said.

"I was supposed to have a trial, but then they acquitted me, because they opened the second sample, and everything was fine.

"I was terrible I was depressed."

Sochi 2014 was marred by revelations of a state-sponsored doping programme, but proceedings against figure skater Adelina Sotnikova were dropped by the IOC in November 2017 ©Getty Images
Sochi 2014 was marred by revelations of a state-sponsored doping programme, but proceedings against figure skater Adelina Sotnikova were dropped by the IOC in November 2017 ©Getty Images

Critics clam Sochi 2014 represented attempted sportswashing by Vladimir Putin's regime, and it was marred by subsequent revelations of a state-sponsored doping programme.

Sotnikova was named in the WADA-commissioned McLaren Report in December 2016 as one athlete about whom scratches indicative of tampering were found on test tubes in which urine samples were submitted, but the International Olympic Committee (IOC) cleared her of wrongdoing in November 2017 after deeming "there is no sufficient element in the evidence available to date" to establish an anti-doping rule violation.

Former Moscow laboratory director turned whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov, the main witness in the McLaren Report, said she was not part of the programme.

The Russian Anti-Doping Agency told the country's state-run news agency TASS it has "no information on this issue".

WADA and the IOC declined to comment.

insidethegames has also asked the International Skating Union for a comment.

Sotnikova stopped competing after the 2015-2016 season, and officially retired in March 2020.

In December last year, she was sanctioned by the Ukrainian Parliament for supporting the Russian invasion of the country.