Russia's official state news agency TASS said this was revealed by a source at the organisation. 

The RBF had set a deadline of Sunday (March 10) for interested officials to put themselves forward to succeed the banned Alexander Zubkov, who has temporarily stepped down from the position until his two-year ban for doping at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi expires in December 2020.

The vote is scheduled to take place during the RBF's extraordinary meeting in Sochi next Wednesday (March 20).

Interim RBF President Anikina, who led Sochi's successful bid for the 2014 Olympic and Paralympic Games, confirmed her intention to stand for the role on a permanent basis last month.

Pimashkov is a businessman from Krasnoyarsk, the Siberian city which hosted the 2019 Winter Universiade, which finished yesterday. 

He was nominated by the local federation of luge and bobsleigh.

Sokolov coached the Russian bobsleigh team between 2010 and 2012.

He was nominated to head the RBF in July 2018, but pulled out of the running - along with former assistant to the Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Anatoly Pegov - after claiming the election was "illegal".

Zubkov was subsequently re-elected to serve a second term as he was the only candidate remaining.

The candidate chosen by the RBF membership next week will serve a full four-year term through to 2023 but it remains possible Zubkov, whose suspension prohibits him from holding a role in any National Federation, could eventually return.

It is feasible that the winner of the election could stand aside to allow Zubkov to retain control of the governing body.

Zubkov, stripped of the Olympic gold medals he won in the two and four-man events at Sochi 2014, has lodged an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF) decision to exclude him for two years.

The suspension from the IBSF effectively forced the 44-year-old to relinquish the RBF Presidency.

Anikina, former head of international relations at the Russian Olympic Committee, then assumed temporary charge of the RBF.

Zubkov was sanctioned after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) found him guilty of knowingly participating in the "systematic manipulation" of the anti-doping system at Sochi 2014.

Fellow bobsledders Alexander Kasjanov, Aleksei Pushkarev, Ilvir Khuzin and Alexey Voevoda were also banned by the IBSF.

The case against Zubkov is said to be one of the strongest as his sample included "physiologically impossible levels of salt".

The CAS also ruled that he had provided clean urine before Sochi - a key barometer in establishing guilt of the individual athletes involved.

This stance was accepted by the IBSF Disciplinary Panel, which had access to CAS reasoned decisions on all Russian bobsleigh and skeleton athletes.

Zubkov has so far failed to hand back his medals to the IOC after a court in Moscow refused to recognise the CAS ruling against him.