The Question That Never Got Asked finally got an answer last month. Had the question been asked earlier, it might have been short but it might have been extremely effective. Who knows, it might have even denied London its successful bid for the 2012 Games.

The Question That Never Got Asked was due that historic day in Singapore on July 6, 2005, after Sebastian Coe had delivered to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) his dazzling speech persuading it to give the Games to London. Coe had been brave because his sales pitch worked on the unpalatable truth that the Olympics is a brand fast losing its foothold among the world's youth.

“Choose London and you send a clear message to the youth of the world,” he said, explaining that London's particular ambition was “to inspire young people to choose sport, wherever they live, whatever they do, whatever they believe”. He broke off to impressive applause and the floor was open to questions. And not one of those 100-plus IOC members asked him: “How?”

Indeed, for nearly three years the question stood. How will London 2012 inspire the youth to engage in sport? It was a most noble pledge, an astonishingly high-reaching promise. And do not mistake it for mere rhetoric; Coe wants it as much as anyone. His problem, though, is that, as chairman of London 2012, he cannot give the nation a sporting legacy. It is not his job. His job is to give us 17 days of expertly organised Olympic Games.

Indeed, no one put their hand up for the job of inspiring the youth to “choose sport”, but the Government took it and for a long time did little about it, then started promising to deliver a legacy plan and, finally, last month, produced an 84-page tome entitled “Before, during and after: making the most of the London 2012 Games”. And, in answer to the Question That Never Got Asked - “How?” - the headline news as written in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) press release was that the 2012 legacy has a “free swimming plan for over-60s at the forefront”.

The deep-seated fear is thus that the London Games may miss the grandest of opportunities to transform the sporting landscape of the nation. Yes, as we stand, London 2012 is well set for staging an outstanding sporting festival; yes, a large corner of East London will be unrecognisably upgraded; and yes, untold man hours have been invested to ensure that it does not become a zoo of white elephants.

Sunday will mark four years until the start of the London Games and, over the coming days, The Times will study other Olympic cities and how they used their Games. One conclusion is that sporting legacy - participation - is a box that no one has successfully ticked. Yet London made it a priority and there is a broad concern within sports administrators that the UK may not get to tick it either. But let us not be gloomy here. Let us instead look at the bright side - or, if you like, at Wade Bennett-Jackson, a 21-year-old “sprint sensation” from Worthing, West Sussex.

By 2012 Bennett-Jackson will be 25 and, given his performances as a junior, is a success story waiting to happen. After London's winning bid in Singapore, 2012 medal hopes suddenly became valuable commodities. Bennett-Jackson was thus endorsed as part of the McDonald's “Team”, as one of the King of Shaves “Young Blades” and, more recently, as one of the “2012 Sporting Hopefuls” of the law firm Berwin, Leighton, Paisner. He is on a lottery grant, but his 2012 credentials bring him an estimated £15,000 on top. Not a lot, perhaps, but it is easier for a 2012 hopeful to find endorsements than for some going to Beijing next month.

That Bennett-Jackson's running times have not improved in two years emphasise that, for McDonald's et al, he is a long-shot gamble. Let us hope that he does speed up, but whether or not it is Bennett-Jackson, someone - some people - will set London 2012 alight. They will be the toast of their home Games and, the way the theory works, there will be children nationwide inspired to follow in their footsteps.

The trick, therefore, is to catch them in that small window before the PlayStation is loaded up again - which does not sound too hard, but no other Games host has succeeded. What it requires is a message - that you, too, can be a Bennett-Jackson, that it is possible, that there is a running track near by, a club desperate to welcome you, a decent, qualified coach and, preferably, school hours and facilities in which you can practice.

Anyone hoping that last month's DCMS legacy plans were going to offer the comprehensive root-and-branch change required to deliver the above would have been disappointed. The DCMS barely has a budget to deliver legacy and it is well established that much of the lottery income that goes to Sport England - to help to build the kind of facilities that a sporting legacy requires - has been diverted to pay for the Games' facilities instead.

The Olympics does not have the clout to have boosted school sport along its painfully slow path. “Before, during and after” trumpeted old plans to give five to 16-year-olds five hours of sport and PE a week, claiming that 86 per cent do the required two hours a week, yet such figures fail to tally with those of a recent parliamentary question showing that 65 per cent of secondary schools and 32 per cent of primary schools fail to meet these standards.

“Before, during and after” actually seems to specialise in promising that plans to deliver promises are soon to be made. A new Sports Legacy Board is to be created (should we not have had that three years ago?). Most worrying was this: that the DCMS has “asked Sport England to develop and deliver a new strategy to create the infrastructure necessary to support increased participation”.

In other words, three years after Coe's speech in Singapore, all we have achieved is the decision to ask a quango to come up with a plan to make a plan. That leaves us two stages of decision-making and bureaucracy before we begin delivery.

But even if we did have a strategy and an infrastructure for the next generation of Bennett-Jacksons, that presumes that there is a message, an inspirational campaign or signposting of some kind to take them there. This introduces possibly the strangest suggestion in “Before, during and after”: that the sports' separate governing bodies should have control and accountability for meeting participation targets. So instead of one massive “Olympics are good” message, we are set for some 30 smallish marketing campaigns with water polo and weightlifting, handball and hockey going head to head.

This, surely, is not the answer to the Question That Never Got Asked. What Bennett-Jackson tells us is that London 2012 is a phenomenal magnet, that there are corporations lining up for a part of it. But who wants the bigger picture? And how can it be delivered? The question has massive connotations for the future of sport in the UK. At least it would if we had an answer.