The flame has long been snuffed out but the big names of track and field will tonight, once again, ignite London's Olympic Stadium, 12 months after this remodelled corner of Stratford temporarily became the cauldron of the world.

What has been branded The Anniversary Games – but is, in reality, a two-day Diamond League meeting with a Paralympic adjunct on Sunday – has been designed to recapture the spirit of 2012 with figures such as Usain Bolt and Mo Farah back for one more flourish before the venue in which they carved out history is given a new primary identity as West Ham United's home.

Yet Liz Lynch believes the embers of what transpired over 10 glorious days and nights last summer continue to burn. The Olympic silver medallist of 1988 will be present in her role as coach and mother to Eilish McColgan as the UK steeplechase champion closes her preparations for next month's world championships with an outing over 3000m.

Many have come on in leaps and bounds in the wake of the Games, a golden generation already under threat from the new kids on the blocks. That a number are Scottish bodes well for Glasgow 2014. It is, Lynch declares, some evidence that legacy is not a mere myth. "There are a lot of athletes performing well now," the 49-year-old said. "You see Scottish athletes, with the Commonwealth Games coming up, getting qualifying times. Three years ago, you wouldn't have had that depth. So obviously there's been an input coming out of the London Olympics. People are raising the bar in the way they train. Expectations and goals have gone up.

"Among the distance runners, there's more thinking outside the box than just about the UK standards. And you're seeing sprinters [James Dasaolu] running 9.91; throwers, field eventers doing well. It's across the board. The swing is in the right direction."

Two of the most promising Scots, middle-distance runner Laura Muir and high jumper Allan Smith, last week won bronze medals in the European Under-23 Championships in Finland. Both perform before the biggest crowd of their lives tonight, with Muir running the 1500m, ahead of her major-championship bow in Moscow over 800m. "She's a really hard worker," Lynch said. "When she decides what event she wants to do, we'll see what she's really capable of. Across the board, she's running really quickly."

McColgan will hope for the same. A personal best is her target. It would ease fears that she is risking long-term gain for immediate benefit, having opted to continue her season and ignore medical advice, given a month ago, that a lower-leg complaint needed rest, not races.

The Dundonian has been receiving almost daily care at Loughborough, base for UK Athletics, and now also for Lynch's entire brood. They have moved, en masse, from Carnoustie, partly due to personal circumstance, partly a professional switch so that McColgan can be part of a bigger training group as she builds towards Rio 2016. "She's done a lot there before, as well as the altitude programme," Lynch continued. "We knew we'd be down anyway a couple of times a year but with this niggle, it just made sense for her to be based there and stay in the athletes' house. It was a no-brainer, especially to get this sorted and have that input from the medical teams."

His time of 3min 28.81sec in Monaco, which made him the sixth fastest man in history over the distance, will have been noted by his Kenyan and Ethiopian challengers. It even took his coach, Alberto Salazar, aback. "It was a shock," Farah said. "You plan to run decent times and run races, but in the 1500m the plan was never to run that fast. My coach was quite surprised."

Farah is hoping for a stadium atmosphere similar to that during London 2012. "It will never be the same again, having the Olympics at that moment," he added. "But it will be great if it is close to that."

There have, however, been a host of British withdrawals. Farah's fellow Olympic champion, long jumper Greg Rutherford, is out with a hamstring injury, as is Dai Greene, the world 400m hurdles champion,with an Achilles tendon problem. But Jessica Ennis-Hill has confirmed she will participate after her injured Achilles came through her first competition of the summer, in Loughborough on Tuesday.