So, one hundred days to go, and counting, to curtain-up on London's East End spectacular.

A cast of thousands wait in the wings for sport's Greatest Show on Earth, with just about every living British Olympic legend who has contributed to the nation's Games history having a part to play in the £9.2 billion ($14.7 billion/€11.2 billion) production if – they haven't appeared on stage already.

Of course, not all can have a starring role but a veritable galaxy have contributed in various supporting roles to leading man Lord Sebastian Coe: Jonathan Edwards, Sir Steve Redgrave, Dame Kelly Holmes, Daley Thompson, Sally Gunnell, Alan Pascoe – the list is a formidable assembly of past and present Olympians called up in various guises from ambassadors to acolytes, to help keep the public pulses facing in anticipation of what is to come this summer.

Yet there are some stellar names absent from this illustrious platoon.

Among them is Linford Christie, 52, the Barcelona 1992 Olympic 100 metres gold medallist banned in the twilight of a career after a positive drugs test. He cites an ongoing feud with Lord Coe as the reason for his absence from the 2012 front line team, though he is personal coach to several Olympic athletes. He has declined an invitation to run with the Olympic Torch.

More curious is the overlooking of Tessa Sanderson, 56, six-time Olympian and the first British black woman to win an Olympic title (javelin gold in Los Angeles in 1984). Although involved with the original London bid team she was disappointed in not being invited to join the Singapore front bench  line-up and subsequently has had no formal role with 2012, though she says she remains "hopeful".


Tessa is now schooling and raising funds for young athletes in the Olympic heartland of Newham, where she again organised last weekend's Newham 10 kilometre Classic.

Also on the outside of the big Olympic build-up is David Bedford, 62, a former 10,000m world record holder and Munich 1972 Olympian who ends his long-running full-time post as race director of the London Marathon this Sunday (April 22). He has relinquished his advisory role with the Olympic event following a disagreement over the course, saying."It just wasn't possible for me to work with LOCOG."

Yet the most notable absentee from any 2012 involvement is the man who was closest to Coe – in the athletic sense – in their running days throughout the seventies and eighties.

Steve Ovett has not been part of the Games build-up, unlike scores of his contemporaries, and this does not appear to be just because he now lives in Australia.

Last October he was invited by London 2012 to fly from his home in Brisbane to join fellow Olympic gold medallists Carl Lewis, Nadia Comaneci and Rebecca Adlington for the launch promotion of the 2012 ticket sales, but it fell through apparently after a dispute over the terms of his appearance.

London 2012 say they had agreed to pay him £10,000 ($16,000/€12,000) for his single day of promotional work (after a smaller offer was rejected), plus business-class travel and accommodation.

The reply from Ovett's management company was that he would also require four tickets for his three children for all nine days of the track and field competition in the Olympic Stadium, at which point London 2012 decided to withdraw the offer.


Ovett (pictured right), 54, had also declined to cooperate last year on a proposed Hollywood-scripted film about his intense rivalry with Coe (left), saying at the time: "I prefer to leave the past exactly where it is. After Chariots of Fire I think they would prefer everyone to still be wearing baggy shorts, and I can picture the intellectual, clean cut, perfect smile Seb up against 'working class boy'. It kinda sucks."

He also said no to a request to appear with Coe earlier this year on a BBC radio programme about great sporting rivalries.

Yet for the past 20 years Ovett has worked in the media, as a sought-after and forthright television commentator and is expected to be in London working for Australian television.

So while Coe is running the Games, Ovett appears to be running away from them, though I understand there is hope he will be among the Torchbearers as the Flame is carried towards the Olympic Stadium.

But there is no confirmation of this and Ovett has not responded to our requests for an interview.

Coe is not alone in being puzzled by Ovett's apparent diffidence. Although he and Ovett were not exactly running mates, barely exchanging more than a few words when they were competing, they subsequently forged what Coe says is a "cordial" relationship.


They certainly seemed on friendly terms when they last met socially at the World Athletics Championships in Daegu, South Korea and previously had appeared together to discuss their respective careers and rivalry at media functions during the Melbourne Commonwealth Games and latterly at Lord's.

Athletically theirs had been a rivalry as fiercely and unremittingly combative as that of Ali and Frazier, trading records almost as frequently as the legendary heavyweights had punches.

Yet they actually raced against each other infrequently, the most significant clashes being in the Olympics of 1980 and 1984.

Both went head-to-head for the first time in the 800m and 1500m in the Moscow.

Ovett had set a world mile record, had equalled Coe's 1500m world record mark of 3min 32.1 sec and had remained unbeaten over that distance for three years, while Coe had run the fastest ever 800m, his signature event, the previous year in a time of 1:42.3.

However, Coe was beaten to gold by Ovett in what he admitted was a tactical failure, uttering a terse "well done" at the end and looking at his silver medal on the rostrum, as if he would have liked to toss it into a rubbish bin.


By the time of the Los Angeles Games four years later Coe had the ascendancy, becoming the first, and only, man to retain the 1500m title. And Coe went to Ovett's aid when the defeated champion collapsed, with a virus, at the end of the 800m (in which Coe again took silver), ensuring Ovett received medical attention after being left alone in the tunnel in agony.

Always an awkward, rebellious character as an athlete (whereas Coe was the media-friendly consummate politician-in-the-making) it seems a shame if Ovett, whose old adversary is running London's showpiece, has elected to run away from it.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title from Atlanta to Zaire.