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Leading Russian anti-doping official dies suddenly

Leading Russian anti-doping official dies suddenly

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

FILE - Nikita Kamaev, then, managing director of Russian Anti-Doping Agency RUSADA, talks to the press at the agency headquarters in Moscow. Kamaev has died two months after leaving his post amid Russia's doping scanda, on Tuesday, November 10, 2015. Photo: AP

MOSCOW: A Russian anti-doping agency spokeswoman says RUSADA's former executive director Nikita Kamaev died on Sunday. He was 52. In a telephone interview with The Associated Press on Monday, RUSADA spokeswoman Nataliya Koshel confirmed Kamaev had died, two months after quitting work at the agency which is at the center of the Russia's biggest doping scandal. Former RUSADA general director Ramil Khabriev told Russia's state Tass news agency that he believed Kamaev had died at home of a heart attack after feeling pain in his chest while skiing. Kamaev and Khabriev both quit in December, a month after RUSADA was stopped from conducting drug tests by the World Anti-Doping Agency following accusations it had covered up cases of doping by leading Russian athletes.