He won decathlon bronze for Scotland at the 2002 Commonwealth Games and, while that falls short of the Olympic gold gained by Sebastian Coe, Jamie Quarry will try to match Lord Coe off the track today in Sri Lanka.

The 34-year-old PE teacher will make part of the 30-minute presentation which will attempt to bring the 2014 Games to Glasgow. Coe was a key speaker when London won the right to host the 2012 Olympics.

A former Scottish champion who competed for Falkirk Victoria Harriers before retirement after the Manchester Games, Quarry is a member of the athletes' commission which has helped shape Glasgow's bid. Yet in February his efforts for Scotland left him in agony, on a morphine drip in hospital, and wondering if he would ever recover.

He took unpaid leave to help as a bid ambassador, but, 10 days after returning from a tour of Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland, succumbed to septicemia.

He discounts fears of an African bloc vote. "The one thing they were all struck by is how impressive the presentations and the bid was," he said. "I don't think there was a sense there would be a bloc vote."

When Quarry won his Commonwealth medal, his wife, Annette, was in the Manchester stand with their first son, Rio. She sent a text as he stood on the track: "You deserved that now get a bloody job."

Now he has another, very special one, today. A successful conclusion would mean even more to Scotland.