Dame Kelly Holmes has one last great Olympic ambition - she wants to light the Olympic flame at London 2012.

True to the charismatic nature of the woman who won double gold in Athens in 2004, however, she wants it to be a ceremony with a difference.

Dame Kelly wants to be part of a group hug of British Olympic legends, all tasked with lighting the flame simultaneously at the Olympic stadium in Stratford in 1,000 days' time.

"In Britain we've got some really good established Olympic champions,'' Holmes said.

"Everybody could probably give you five or six people who could be up there to light the flame.

"Give it to us all. It's a whole nation celebrating success. If we brought success to the country and are remembered because of that then get us to do it as a group.''

Dame Kelly currently is second favourite, behind five-time gold medal rower Sir Steve Redgrave, with most bookmakers to become the flame lighter, a job which has taken on iconic status in recent years with Muhammad Ali performing the role at Atlanta in 1996 and Cathy Freeman unifying an Australian nation in Sydney in 2000.

In Beijing the job was done by China's Li Ning, a triple gold medallist who ran around the rim of the Bird's Nest stadium suspended from wires before lighting up the Beijing sky.

Dame Kelly's plan is not as energetic but it would be novel and she agrees it might include Olympians such as Lord Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London organising committee, Daley Thompson and Paralympian Dame Tanni Grey Thompson, as well as herself and Redgrave.

"As a young kid I had a passion to be an Olympic champion,'' she added.

"It's been my absolute life and now I'm dedicated to help young people achieve their dream.

"It's once in a lifetime to have an Olympic Games in your country, isn't it? To be part of lighting the Olympic flame would be greater than my wildest dreams. It would mean everything.

"If we were all the people who got to hold that torch and light the big flame, for the general public that would be the best thing.''

Dame Kelly allowed herself that dreamy thought as she continued her mentoring with the BT Backing Talent programme, run through the Dame Kelly Holmes Legacy Trust, in which world-class sports performers act as role models.

Among her helpers this week in Manchester was Sarah Stevenson, who clinched taekwondo bronze in Beijing and who Dame Kelly predicts will win gold in London.

Dame Kelly is also optimistic about 1,500 metres star Hannah England, who she picks as one to watch in a batch of talented women in British middle-distance.

"I absolutely believe that the 1,500m will be one of the strongest events in athletics for us,'' she said.

"There's a great rivalry between the Brits. There are about 10 of them who are all as good as each other.

"But you can say that about so many sports. That is what more investment has brought to British sport.

"Now it's a case of saying 'Gosh, look how great the British teams are'.

"I feel almost sorry for them. You have to be one of the best in the world just to be one of the best of the Brits.

"That is what 2012 has created. We are becoming a nation of world-class performers. We're going to see the flag flying high many, many times which would ignite the nation.''

Dame Kelly is a natural optimist, one who this summer became president of Commonwealth Games England.

Yet she knows the sacrifices involved in becoming a champion, having suffered copious injury setbacks before Olympic gold came in a rush in the 800m and 1,500m in Athens.

She also knows the value of competing on home soil after winning 1,500m gold in Manchester in the Commonwealth Games of 2002.

"With my family cheering me on in Manchester - the first time they had watched me at a major championship - it was the best feeling ever,'' she said.

London 2012, she believes, will have a similar uplifting effect, one which will leave its greatest legacy not in the rejuvenation of east London but in the hearts and minds of the nation's children.

"We can inspire a new generation to take part in sport and create a whole new raft of champions to be role models for the next generation,'' she says.

"That is a legacy which can carry on for a long time.''