The former head of Russia's anti-doping agency has died, reports said on Monday, two months after he stepped down from his post following a doping scandal that had led to Russia being suspended from international athletics.
In November last year, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) had pulled up Russia and accused its sports officials and athletes of state-sponsored doping abuse and violating international regulations on performance-enhancing substances.
Nikita Kamayev, former executive director of Russia's Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA), had resigned along with other top executives after the WADA probe had alleged the agency of taking bribes for doping control tests.
His death due to a "heart attack" was reported by the official TASS news agency citing a former colleague who said that he had not known Kamayev as facing any heart problems.
"He complained of heart ache after a skiing session. He has never complained about heart problems, at least to me. Maybe his wife knew about such problems," former director general of the agency, Ramil Khabriyev, told TASS news agency.
It is still not clear if the ban on Russian athletes will be lifted in time for the Rio Olympics 2016 in August this year.
Last week, International Association of Athletics Federations President Sebastian Coe had met with the head of the Russian athletics federation and discussed "Russian athletics and the way to lead it out of the crisis," USA Today reports.
One of the conditions for Russian athletes to return to international competition is to allow them to face extra testing.
