Sir Roger, whose feat at Oxford's Iffley Road in 1954 is still one of the most famous in British sport, is hoping that the city can attract a team to train there before the 2012 Games.

 

Iffley Road is among a number of venues in Oxfordshire that have been approved by London 2012 officials to host overseas teams before the Olympics and Parlaympics.

 

Sir Roger, who became a successful neurologist after his athletics career finished and was also the first chairman of the Sports Council, for which he was knighted, is now 80 and still lives in Oxford.

 

He said: "Oxford is on a list of towns within about 50 miles of London where facilities might be needed for a practising team.

 

“I don’t think Germany, France or America would be coming here, but a country the size of Kenya might want to come here to train early.

 

“They would not be put in the Olympic Village and might come to Oxford, get accommodation in one of the colleges and use the training facilities we have at the Iffley Road site.

 

“Oxford University has now been accepted as one of the training locations and I have been involved in giving advice to sports development staff at the university.”

 

Last year, London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe showed Sir Roger around the site of the 80,000-seat stadium in East London.

 

In 2007 Coe had re-opened Iffley Road after it had been refurbished.

 

Sir Roger competed in the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, finishing a disappointing fourth, which helped fuel his determination to become the first man to break sub-four minutes for the mile.