Day 13 of the relay was started with a football manager and will end with a boxing champion

Stoke City Football Club manager Tony Pulis has kicked off day 13 of the torch relay which is making its way from Stoke-on-Trent to Bolton.

Torchbearers continuing the sporting theme will be TV presenter Kirsty Gallacher and British boxer Amir Khan, who will run the final leg of the day.

Comedian John Bishop will also carry the flame over the top of the tower on the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank.

The 108-mile route will take in Crewe, Macclesfield, Widnes and Warrington.

Pulis, 54, started the day's proceedings at the Potteries Museum and Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent just before 07:00 BST.

He has has raised more than £100,000 this year for a local children's hospice by running the London Marathon and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.

And he has taken time off from a 960-mile charity bike ride from John O'Groats to Land's End to carry the torch.

He said: "Although I'm carrying the torch and I get the honour of doing that, I'm representing the players, the supporters and everybody connected with Stoke City Football Club.

"There's great euphoria in the Pulis family for me doing it but there is also a great disappointment for me is that I've lost my mum and dad. They would've been so, so proud of what I'm doing."

Ex-world champion Khan, who became the youngest British Olympic boxing medallist when he won silver at the 2004 Athens Games, is scheduled to arrive at Queen's Park in his home town of Bolton at 18:46 BST. He told the BBC: "I think the last boxer to carry a torch was Muhammad Ali, so it's a great honour for me."

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An evening celebration will be held at the venue which will also host performances from rock band The Wombats and dance group Twist & Pulse.

Throughout the day a total of 135 torchbearers will carry the Olympic flame.

Another early starter was 18-year-old Thomas Buckett, who slipped and fell through a glass skylight while retrieving a football in 2010. He landed on marble steps, shattering the left side of his skull and was not expected to survive, but pulled through after nine hours of intensive surgery.

He was told he would be paralysed on the right side of his body, unable to talk or walk. But against all the odds he is walking, talking and understands perfectly - his surgeons say he is an inspiration and that his recovery has been remarkable.

His mum Amanda told BBC Radio Stoke: "At the time Tom was running, at this time two years ago he was just coming out of life-saving emergency surgery - just to see what he was doing today was absolutely amazing."

Philip Greer was also told he would never walk again after becoming paralysed at the age of six following a bout of rheumatic fever but after 14 months in a wheelchair he was back on his feet and carried the torch in Middleport.

"I've run 28 marathons and I've come up the Mall with 20,000 people cheering me on, but that was special. Doing a marathon there's thousands of others in the race, but today there's no-one else there, only you. You know everyone is shouting just for you, it's so personal.

"There was people coming up to have photos, they wanted to touch me, touch the torch. It was like being Sylvester Stallone for the day," he told BBC Radio Stoke.

Funnyman Bishop will complete his stint at the Jodrell Bank Observatory, which houses the Lovell Telescope - the third largest steerable dish radio telescope in the world.

Bishop is another who is no stranger to putting himself through the pain barrier for charity, having completed a 290-mile triathlon from Paris to London in five days earlier this year to raise money for the BBC charity Sport Relief.

On Sport Relief day, 23 March 2012 it was announced that, to date, his efforts had raised £3.4m

Other highlights of the route include a visit to Tatton Park, one of the UK's most complete historic estates and home to a Tudor Old Hall and Neo-Classical Mansion.

Prescot's Michael Dooling, 63, will carry the flame through the park after being nominated for his work in athletics. He has been coach of Liverpool Harriers for more than 30 years.

The gloves will be off for boxer Amir Khan when he carries the torch for the final leg of the day

Later, Olympians Martyn Woodroffe and Jazmin Sawyers, TV presenter Kirtsy Gallacher and Brazilian former basketball player Oscar Schmidt will run legs.

Welsh swimmer Woodroffe won a silver medal at the 1968 Games in Mexico, while Sawyers won a silver medal at this year's Winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck.

Another of the day's highlights will come when Linda Roche, 49, carries the flame through Macclesfield.

She is a Paralympian who participated in the 1984 Stoke Mandeville Paralympic Games and during the 1990s was the first female wheelchair user to represent England at badminton

Wigan's Roy Wood, 68, will carry the Flame in Abram. For the past 30 years he has given up his free time to train young people in wrestling and last year he was awarded the BBC Sports Personality North West Unsung Sport Hero award.

A total of 8,000 people will carry the flame on its 8,000 mile, 70-day journey around the UK to the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on 27 July.