The 23-year-old earned gold in front of a home crowd in 2014, but has since only competed once on the flagship Grand Prix of Figure Skating circuit due to injury troubles. 

Sotnikova has now made headlines off the rink, with Russian news agency RT reporting that she was victim to a fortune-telling scam. 

She reportedly paid a total of two million rubles (£25,000/$32,000/€29,000) to a "fortune teller" on Instagram, hoping that issues in her personal life would be solved. 

Having received the money, the "fortune teller" is believed to have fled to Ukraine, prompting Sotnikova to report the incident to police.

Two people linked to the scam have now been detained, but the "fortune teller" remains at large. 

Sotnikova's victory in Sochi led to question marks over scoring and judging, as many felt that South Korea's Yuna Kim, the Vancouver 2010 champion, should have been awarded the gold.

In 2017, Sotnikova was cleared of a doping charge by the International Olympic Committee, who were investigating Russian sample swapping at their home Sochi Games.

She was named in an evidence disclosure package published with the World Anti-Doping Agency-commissioned McLaren Report, as one athlete where scratches indicative of tampering were found on test tubes.

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

The crisis forced Russia to compete under a neutral flag at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea in February.

In Sotnikova's absence, 15-year-old Russian Alina Zagitova won the Olympic title.