London 2012 blog

It’s been a busy year so far across the Olympic Park site but yesterday was certainly one of the biggest and most high-profile milestones we have achieved on the project to date.

Starting construction on the Olympic Stadium, three months earlier than planned, was always going to be a big moment and to welcome the Prime Minister Gordon Brown on site to mark the occasion was an incredibly proud moment for everyone involved in the project.

It was a tremendous honour to take the Prime Minister around the site and to introduce him to the many faces and organisations that have helped us get this far in the project. The encouraging speech he made about our progress on site gives us all a huge boost as the ‘big build’ phase of the project gets underway.

With the speeches complete it was out onto the Stadium bowl itself where a special area had been set up for media interviews. Facing a number of cameras and photographers in this project is nothing new but today it was quite literally a moving experience as the ground literally shook beneath us each time one of the huge concrete piling columns was driven into the ground!

Me, left, with (clockwise) Sarah Brown, Mayor of London Boris Johnson, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, LOCOG Chair Seb Coe and Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell as we view the Stadium site from the viewing platform:

The media interviews gave us a further chance to hear Gordon Brown’s encouraging words about the project. New London Mayor Boris Johnson was equally positive, saying he was 'blown away' by the progress on the Stadium site.

With the site event complete and their encouraging words still ringing in our ears, there was just time back at the office to catch the details of IOC’s press conference that marked the end of their three-day Coordination Commission visit to inspect London 2012's progress.

It would have been very hard to top the praise we’d been given by Gordon Brown and others earlier in the day but Denis Oswald’s comments that the progress made on the Olympic Park is 'truly astounding' came close!

So it was a great day for everyone involved in the project and with construction work now underway, I look forward to seeing us continue to make great progress in the months ahead. It has been a good week but we know there is a huge challenge ahead.