Coe has promised to join a team runners currently taking part in artist Martin Creed's controversial Work No 850 at Tate Britain.

 

The former world record holder, now 51, hopes to recruit a number of other Olympic athletes to have won gold medals, including former triple jumper Jonathan Edwards, to sprint through the Duveen galleries every 30 seconds.

 

Coe said: "I sadly think my days of sprinting are behind me.

 

"This is likely to be a hobble through the Tate.

 

"I saw the work a few months ago and thought it was a spectacular thing."

 

Coe, who won the Olympic 1500 metres title in Moscow in 1980 and Los Angeles in 1984, said: "I'm not sure it will be easy, but it will be a lot of fun.

 

"I won't be training, and I'll probably do one-and-a-half laps.

 

"I'm a runner that doesn't run any more, and I certainly haven't run through an art gallery recently."

 

Other details of London's Cultural Olympiad were also announced this morning by Coe at the National Theatre on London's South Bank.

 

He was joined by Jude Kelly, the London 2012 chair of culture, ceremonies and education, and Bill Morris, director of culture, ceremonies and education.

 

The launch, it was announced, will be celebrated with a nationwide Open Weekend, on September 26-28. 

 

With more than 500 events, presented by more than 160 organisations around the UK, London 2012 hope weekend will give a taste of the depth of talent and creativity that will be showcased over the coming years, leading up to the Games.

 

Across the country, the hundreds of events, large and small, provide a vast variety of opportunities for everyone to celebrate.

 

Other highlights of Open Weekend will include:

 

· Museums and Galleries all over the country are opening up their stores to reveal their hidden treasures for the first time including The Discovery Museum in Newcastle, Stephenson Railway Museum, Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens, Shipley Art Gallery, Laing Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool, Tate, V&A, the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth, National Galleries of Scotland

 

· There will be a special edition of Open Rehearsal, the Mayor of London’s annual festival opening up cultural organisations around the capital for backstage tours, rehearsals and workshops

 

· Londonderry will celebrate its reputation as Northern Ireland ’s City of Song with a weekend of music highlighting emerging talent in the clubs, pubs and streets of the city

 

· Wales Millennium Centre throws open its doors to present urban arts performances by young people from around the whole of Wales

 

· The 24 arts organisations of the South Bank and Bankside Cultural Quarter will be taken over by the Street Geniuses, a group 16-19 year olds from South London, with a weekend of outdoor dance performances, pop-up exhibitions and special film showings, all of them free

 

· Blackpool Tower will be specially lit up in the four London 2012 colours at 20:12pm on the night of September 26 with a spectacular fireworks display over the famous Blackpool Promenade and access to the town’s leisure facilities at 1948 prices, the last year that the UK hosted the Games

 

· Windsor will host a celebratory weekend heralded by the lighting up of the tower of Windsor Castle by HRH the Duke of York

 

· Cambridge and County Folk Museum will present the true stories behind local sporting legends through the ages and invite visitors to bring their own trophy or medal and record their sporting stories for the archive

 

· Lincoln will host a mini Greek Games at the new art and archaeology Collection Museum

 

· Weymouth, a venue for the sailing for the London 2012 Games, will host  "Stories of the Sea", a unique outdoor performance with spectacular pyrotechnics, light and sound created by acclaimed Spanish artists Xarxa Theatre, working with young people from Poole, Bournemouth and Weymouth

 

· The Baltic in Gateshead will present The Great North Run cultural programme, celebrating the challenges of the region’s half-marathon, with a viewing of Beat Streuli’s photographic portraits of elite athletes who have taken part and a screening of "Run for Me" a new film by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, charting the course of the run through its participants

 

· Wycombe will present "After the Windrush", a day-long celebration to mark the 60th anniversary of the arrival of the ship Windrush in 1948 from the perspective of three generations of the Afro-Caribbean community in Wycombe

 

· Youth Music Voices will perform a sample of its work at venues around London including The Front Room at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Barbican and the artsdepot in Finchley

 

Kelly said: "Working together with this country's great artists and institutions, we will ensure that we have a programme that will inspire participation, enable everyone to get involved and unleash the creative talents of young people across the whole of the UK."