Sebastian Coe is once more where his fans remember him: third — but poised to pounce on his two rivals as he approaches the final bend. The double gold medallist has been asked to lead Britain’s bid to host the games and that really is an Olympian task.

In a panicky mid-race change, Barbara Cassani, the American businesswoman running our bid, decided to hand the baton to Coe, carrying on as his deputy. London had made it to the shortlist of five, but behind Paris and Madrid. Who better to take us to glory than one of our best athletes turned (rather less successfully) politician?

When the offer came he sought advice from his friend, former boss and judo buddy William Hague. “He said, ‘The job sounds fantastic but risky’, so I said, ‘You are the guy who at the age of 36 took over the leadership of the Tories (after being wiped out at the 1997 election) and you call this risky?’ ”

Sports fans will hope that the Hague comparisons end there, but if Coe, 47, is under intense pressure he hides it well. Cassani had been wrongly quoted as saying that Tony Blair was excited by the prospect of women’s Olympic volleyball being played outside his window. It caused a rumpus and even though she extracted an apology from The Daily Telegraph it may have convinced her to stand aside.

Coe merely chuckles and confirms Blair’s interest in the bikini babes: “I was sitting next to the prime minister watching the presentation video and when the ladies’ volleyball came on he went ‘Hmm’ and paid great attention.”

Still, landing the games is no, well, game. “In my quieter moments I accept Paris is favourite. There are no easy pickings left on that table.” Not least because the prize is “huge”: it is not appreciated, he says, that if London wins, Olympic organisers will write us a cheque for £1 billion. Then a vast, grim area of the capital will be regenerated with massive European Union, government and private money.

“We are not looking,” Coe says dryly, “to stage the world marble championships.” Having been a whip under John Major — entrusted, he smiles, with numerous dark secrets — he insists that he is wily enough to swing votes our way. Bertrand Delanoë, the leader of the French bid, is “one of my closest friends; I will have to make sure I have minders with him next time we meet”.

He lists sundry Kenyans and other handy names from his address book and will soon be seeing Juan Antonio Samaranch, the former Olympics chairman, “in a personal capacity”. He could be useful because, as a huge Coe fan, he tried to change the Olympic rules to give Coe a wild card for the Olympics in 1988.

If Coe is serious about winning the Olympics for Britain once again, doesn’t he need to whip out his chequebook and buy lots of Mercedes for Third World delegates?

“We don’t live in a country comfortable with bartering,” he splutters. “Our political process is the most transparent in the world. I wouldn’t do it and couldn’t do it.”

With his title, petrol blue suit and schoolboy politeness, there is no doubting that Coe has the charm. But does he have the chicanery? He pulled up at the first hurdle at Westminster in 1997 after just one term as an MP, on the verdict of the good people of Falmouth and Camborne. Will the French be as gentlemanly as Lord Coe?

Cue big smirk and long pause: “Don’t try to draw me there. Look, if you are asking will I be acute on occasion and alive to the psychology, then yes, absolutely. I was one of those who tightened up the rules. I didn’t quite realise I would become a poacher so soon.”

In truth he must be tough as tarmac: he defied Margaret Thatcher, the prime minister, to compete in the 1980 Moscow Olympics and came home with the sexiest gold of all, the 1500 metres; then, written off four years later at the Los Angeles games, he won it again. He shows that he has lost none of his competitiveness when I ask if he sees his great running rival, Steve Ovett. Coe says they e-mail and, despite appearances, were always friends.