Doping & Drugs ·
The Request to Re-examine Sotnikova’s Sochi Tests
Her disputed comments prompted South Korean authorities to seek a new inquiry in 2023. The IOC declined, and South Korea’s anti-doping agency said WADA found insufficient evidence of doping.
In July 2023, South Korea’s sports authorities sought a new investigation into Adelina Sotnikova’s doping tests from the year she won Olympic figure skating gold in Sochi. In a Russian YouTube clip, Sotnikova had said she tested positive in 2014 but was cleared by her B sample. She later disputed that account of what she meant: She said anti-doping officials had found scratches on the tube containing her sample, not that she had tested positive.
The distinction mattered for a result that had been contested since the competition. Sotnikova scored 224.59 points at the 2014 Games, finishing more than five points ahead of South Korea’s Kim Yu-na, the defending champion and gold-medal favorite. Sotnikova’s performance and resulting gold medal sparked a judging controversy. The questions raised in 2023 concerned a different issue: whether her samples warranted another examination.
The Korean Sport & Olympic Committee asked the International Olympic Committee to look into Sotnikova’s comments. An official explained the request by pointing to the reported difference between the two test results. “This is a very rare case, so a reinvestigation is needed,” the official told Yonhap. “Since drug testing technology has improved, we think they should be able to find something that they couldn't in the past.” That was an argument for further testing, not a finding that Sotnikova had doped.
The Korea Anti-Doping Agency made its own request to the World Anti-Doping Agency on July 21. After Sotnikova said her comments concerned scratches on the sample container, the Korean agency argued that damage could indicate tampering. It sought a thorough reinvestigation to protect “South Korean athletes’ rights and the spirit of fair competition.” The original comments appeared in a YouTube clip that was later unavailable.
A 2017 IOC doping case was publicly linked to Sotnikova, though the IOC did not confirm the athlete’s identity. The IOC said it had dropped a Sochi case against an athlete whose identity it withheld “in order to protect the rights of the athlete”; Russian news agencies reported that the athlete was Sotnikova. Russian Figure Skating Federation president Alexander Gorshkov told R-Sport that the federation had expected that result. Sotnikova kept her gold medal.
The renewed requests in 2023 did not produce another investigation. In August, the IOC told the Korean Olympic committee that it had identified no violations by Sotnikova and would not open an investigation.
WADA’s answer addressed the physical mark at the center of the Korean anti-doping agency’s request. According to the agency’s August 28 account, WADA identified a scratch inside the cap of Sotnikova’s sample tube, but its researchers determined that ordinary opening and closing could have caused it. WADA concluded that there was insufficient evidence to prove doping, ruled out foul play and declined to reinvestigate.