Lord Coe has nominated Daley Thompson as his choice to light the Olympic flame in just over a year's time, but the chairman of the 2012 Games said he had absented himself from the decision-making process.
Lord Coe, who like Thompson won gold at the 1980 and 1984 Games, has already ruled himself out of the running to light the cauldron on 27 July 2012 in the Olympic Stadium, saying that if it was down to him he would select Thompson because he was "a mate" and also happened to be "the greatest Olympian we've delivered".
But he said that he had now decided to leave the decision to Danny Boyle, the film director who is overseeing the opening ceremony. "I have now formally decided I am going to absent myself from any further discussions and judgments – not that we've had any yet – but I am now out of it," he said. "Now that I've absented myself from that decision, that's where my vote would go."
The London Organising Committee chairman said he recently sent a text in support of Thompson to BBC 5 Live on hearing a debate where it was suggested that the gold medallist in 1980 and 1984 would be too controversial a choice. But he said he had resolved to leave the decision to Boyle and his team.
"It will be a synthesis of our creative teams and Danny Boyle. It may be quite obvious at the time. I think we rather assume it needs to be an Olympian. If you think back to 1948 it was a really unknown 400m runner, John Mark. My gut instinct is it needs to be an Olympian," said Coe.
On speculation that the remaining living Beatles – Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr – could play at the opening ceremony, Coe also diplomatically demurred to Boyle. "I think everybody understands that was and has been a great part of 'Brand Britain', so they're an extraordinary creative talent," said Coe, talking at the launch of BT's online Storytellers project, in which 150 people from schoolchildren to athletes will record their story of the Games. "So I'll leave that to Danny Boyle along with the choice of the torchbearer."
McCartney recently fuelled the rumours, saying: "I hear there's a rumour that I might be involved. I've not actually heard anything [specific] about it yet ... but they are now planning the music."
Coe said that the response to Locog's progress report to the International Olympic Committee's Congress in Durban last week had been "great". "I do, of course, recognise with the unprecedented demand we've had with tickets there has been a level of disappointment out there," he said of the recent controversy over the sales process in Britain.
"But when you actually sit down with international federation presidents and national Olympic committees and the Olympic movement, they've never witnessed a Games where tickets have gone so quickly across all the sports. Basically, the message to us was, on that basis, we were right to vote for London because London will showcase our sports in a way that few Games in the past have managed to do."