Nikita Kamayev (pictured), who headed Russia's scandal-plagued anti-doping agency RUSADA until December, contacted sports writer David Walsh at the "Sunday Times" expressing his desire to publish information about widespread doping and a cover-up in athletics, the British paper reported on Sunday.

"I want to write a book about the true story of sport pharmacology and doping in Russia since 1987 while being a young scientist working in a secret lab in the USSR Institute of Sports Medicine," he told the newspaper in an email in November. "I have the information and facts that have never been published."

The 50-year-old had reportedly never complained of heart problems before suffering a fatal "massive heart attack" last week after cross-country skiing.

Kamayev and other management resigned in December after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) issued a damning report accusing Russia of widespread state-supported cheating and corruption in testing standards for athletes.

Second death

RUSADA and Moscow's anti-doping laboratory were suspended over the report and the country's athletes were barred from international competitions.

Russia is scrambling to have the athletics ban lifted by adopting a series of reforms before the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in August.

Kamayev's death was the second of a former RUSADA official this February. Founding chairman Vyacheslav Sinev, who departed from the agency in 2010, died earlier in the month. RUSADA did not say how Sinev died.

cw/tj (AP, Reuters)