YOU THINK you know where you are with Seb Coe, but then England's Olympic deity throws in a curveball, a nugget of information that seems designed to make you take a step backwards and listen to what he has to say. It's 1000 days to go until London 2012 and we're sitting in the stands at the Kelvin Hall to talk about why Scots should be energised about the forthcoming Olympic Games. Or at least I am. Coe's mind is on other things.
"I never ran here but I came up to watch a fight up here five years ago, and I stewarded here for a Commonwealth title fight," he says. "I've been a boxing fan all my life, you know, and because of that I got asked to serve as an independent steward
for the British Boxing Board of Control, which was an interesting five years."
By now he's in full flow and there seems little point stopping him. "I love boxing," he continues. "Did you know that the best British boxer of all time was a Scot, Ken Buchanan? He was just incomparably better than anyone else, a sensational fighter. I've got a lot of his fights at home, and have had them all transferred to disc. I don't think I'll ever get tired of sitting and watching him fight. I enjoy watching boxing as much as any sport now, I watch a lot of boxing. Not a lot of people know that."
With that he smiles reflectively and we get down to the real business of finding out why Scots taxpayers should give a toss about an event which is happening in another country but which is eating up close on £10bn of scarce resources. Coe knows the tango we are about to do, but also knows it's the first number on every dancecard when he moves out of London. He spends up to five days a week preaching the Olympic gospel in places like Penzance, Perth and Prestatyn, and knows that everyone outwith the sound of Bow Bells wants to hear why they should stump up for what many see as London's vanity project. It is a question he never really gets around to answering, possibly because there is no reply which will satisfy those people determined to see the Games as a vainglorious waste of money. But watching him skirting around the issue is fascinating.
At least he can point to the absence of the profligacy and overspend that has dogged previous Government projects. With almost three years to go, the arenas are taking shape and most of the infrastructure is on schedule or likely to be completed early. A record sum of £550m has been raised from the private sector, with Coe confident the remaining £150m will be forthcoming.
That has left him free to concentrate on ensuring that the Games has a positive legacy, which he describes as "our biggest and toughest challenge". This will be the first Games, he says, where the sporting, cultural and economic legacy was something that was central to planning.
"We will be different because we've enshrined the legacy from the very outset, which is why we stand a better chance than many other countries of looking back at something that has made a lasting difference," says Coe. "I wouldn't make grandiose claims or try to pretend that we can raise participation levels overnight, but when we won the right to stage the Games five years ago in Singapore we brought a remarkable vehicle back to this country. When I get asked in Inverness – and this isn't just a Scottish thing because I get asked the same thing in Truro or Devizes, Leeds, Sheffield and Cardiff – what's in it for us, my answer, which I hope doesn't sound too dismissive, is that it can be whatever you want it to be, you can take out of it whatever you want to take.
"Five years ago I was in Inverness talking to local groups about the benefits of the Games and exalting them to be a part of it. Now I'm going back to those same communities and I'm seeing things that they have done on the ground that I don't think they would have done had we come back empty-handed. I'm not sitting here saying that we are the panacea, but the way Scottish athletics has decided to mark the 1000-day mark by having a heptathlon amongst local schools is fantastic."
At which stage he jumps up as one of the schoolgirls hurtles around the track and shouts at her to use her arms. "She's got a lovely running action that girl," he says as he sits down. "Occasionally you see an athlete who absolutely takes your breath away and she looked lovely."
I ask Coe why Glaswegians should help pay for London's 2012 Games when Londoners won't be contributing towards Glasgow's 2014 Commonwealth Games. A large part of the answer, he says, is that 75p in every pound spent has nothing to do with the Olympics. "If I sit in London and a large chunk of my taxes go to other parts of the UK to deal with issues of deprivation or whatever, I accept that, and staging the Olympics in London's East End is all about the regeneration of the poorest part of the United Kingdom and one of the poorest areas in the whole of Europe".
Yet for all Coe's bonhomie and positivity, there is an undeniable feeling that he is going through the motions. He has done this often enough to know that he's on a hiding to nothing. He knows that you either believe that an event on this scale is good for the country, or you don't; and he knows that plenty of people outside of London fall into the latter category.
In fact, the only time he becomes truly animated is when I ask how he responds to the accusation that this is an event foisted on the rest of us by well-heeled London-centric politicians grandstanding on the world stage. It is a charge that he takes personally. "I was born in London, brought up in South Yorkshire, educated in the East Midlands, represented a Cornish constituency and I'm half Indian," he says, "so I really don't view the world from inside the M25 – I really do see that it's absolutely vital that it (the Games] is as relevant to people from Glasgow as it is to a Londoner.
"It's very sad if people perceive me that way (as a southern toff] but the reality is that you don't get brought up in an inner-city in Sheffield and go to a pretty tough inner-city secondary modern school, and have an Indian mother, without seeing the world in a slightly different way than you would if you were a member of the metropolitan elite."
And with that he was off, ready to tackle a waiting batch of non-believers. Even if you can't swallow the message whole, it's difficult not to admire the doggedness and determination of the man who delivers it.
TEN SCOTS TO WATCH IN 2012GYMNASTICS: DANIEL KEATINGS
After winning four golds and a bronze at last year's Junior European Championships, the 19-year-old, pictured below, not only won silver in the all-around and bronze on the pommel at the European Championships in Milan in April but also became the first Briton to win an all-around World Championships silver medal at London's O2 Arena.
ROWING: KATHERINE GRAINGER
The reigning British single sculls champion was an Olympic silver medallist in 2000, 2004 and 2008 and is a four-time world champion. Grainger is Britain's most successful female rower and a hot favourite for a quadruple sculls medal. Following her degree and Masters in Law, she is studying homicide for a PhD.
ATHLETICS: STEPHANIE TWELL
The 19-year-old from Colchester, pictured above, recently chose to represent Scotland and is the country's best hope of a track medal. After winning the 1500m junior world title she just missed out on the final in Beijing. She is the first woman to win three European junior cross-country titles.
JUDO: JAMES MILLAR
The 60kg Invergordon judoka comes from a judo-mad family and is one of several real judo medal prospects. The British Judo Association judo player of the year for the past two years, the 28-year-old fighter won gold in this year's GB World Cup and silver in Norway.
CYCLING: CHRIS HOY
Britain's most successful Olympian with three gold medals at Beijing to go with the silver he won in Sydney and the gold he won in Athens, not to mention the four Commonwealth Games medals and 19 world championship medals he has, will be the talisman for the British team in 2012.
SAILING: CHARLOTTE DOBSON
The Edinburgh University student from Helensburgh won a bronze medal at the World Youth Championships in 2004 and after some impressive results, including a fourth place at the Dusseldorf Keiler Woche earlier this year, is seen as a real medal hope for London 2012.
CANOEING: DAVID FLORENCE
The multi-lingual bagpipe-playing ski nut from Aberdeen won a silver medal in the men's slalom C-1 in Beijing and had been in imperious form ever since, winning the World Cup Series and taking a bronze in the World Championships when he teamed up with Richard Hounslow.
BOXING: STEPHEN SIMMONS
The 25-year-old Leith Victoria heavyweight is a multiple Scottish champion and a genuine medal hope. The former scaffolder was well beaten by Ukraine's world No.2 Oleksandr Usyk at the World Championships in September but travelled to Iowa last week and beat reigning golden gloves and American champion Jordan Shimmell.
SWIMMING: HANNAH MILEY
The 20-year-old from Inverurie, pictured below, was sixth at the 400m individual medley in Beijing, 11th in the 200m individual medley and ninth in the 4x400 freestyle relay. At the 2009 World Championships in Rome she was fourth in the 400m IM and sixth in the 200m IM, and won three golds and a silver at the British Championships.
PARALYMPICS: LIBBY CLEGG
The sprinter suffers from the deteriorating eye condition Stargardt's disease and is almost blind, but the 19-year-old Borderer, who goes to school in Edinburgh and runs with guide Linton Asquith, still won a 100m T12 paralympic silver medal in Beijing and is the current British 100m and 200m champion.
