Yesterday I saw more evidence yesterday of people's dedication to helping people achieve their dreams on my tour of the West Midlands - part of London 2012's Nations and Regions programme.
I opened a new athletics track at Aldersley Leisure Village, where I won my first AAA Youth Championship.
I also spoke at a sports participation conference in Telford, and visited Sundorne school in Shrewsbury - a specialist sports college who are working on a range of initiatives to encourage their students to both participate in sport and to have healthy meals at school.
Finally, I visited Telford College of Arts and Technology, where I was introduced to the Telford Sport, Learning and Enterprise Community project - a sporting project bringing together four sites and eight sports under one umbrella to use the power of sport to make a positive difference to people living in the area.
It is comforting to see the impact that winning the right to host the 2012 Games is having. They are an opportunity to be seized both on and off the sporting field. Three years ago a similar trip to yesterday’s would have been about encouraging people to support an Olympic bid. Yesterday it was about witnessing all the things now happening on the ground that would not be happening had we come back from Singapore empty-handed.
[This is an excerpt from my column in the Daily Telegraph]
