Coe (pictured above) is widely credited as the man who spearheaded the London 2012 bid team to a narrow victory over favourites Paris.

With the Paralympic Closing Ceremony set to conclude the Games this evening, he said London 2012 has fulfilled everything it said it would.

"Seven years ago, we snuck across the line in Singapore and that was the day we were entrusted with the start of this journey," Coe said here today.

"I like to think that by the day and by the hour, we've delivered against what we said we wanted to do.

"So it's the final day of the Paralympics and we've had the most extraordinary summer of sport.

"We set a goal to raise awareness of the Paralympics and I think we've done that, not just in elite sport but by helping convert those talents into household names."

Coe also offered advice to cities that want to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the future.

"Really understand why you do this," he said.

"Not just the operational management, because if you create a vision early on, it's that visions that's important.

"Get the communications right and it is just about hard work.

"It's a bit like the daily routine of the athlete; you have to grind it out day after day.

"Know who your friends are and build great teams and the rest tends to follow."

The London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony celebrated everything fantastic about British life

The London 2012 chairman added that it will not be easy to sustain the feel-good factor across the United Kingdom that has been seen at the Games, but that it can be done.

"The real challenge going forward is to maintain a sustainable and meaningful change," he explained.

"It's the question everyone should be asking now and it's not easy.

"It's going to need political energy.

"That's where it begins and ends, both locally and nationally.

"We should think about bringing the cross-party approach to some of the big thorny, knotty issues.

"I hope Britain has recognised in future not to go into these great collapses of confidence, but that we are good enough to go out and do the things we set out to do.

"I hope we've moved away from that great ability to doubt our own ability and that our own domestic perception of ourselves is slightly more in alignment with what the rest of the world has always thought."

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