London 2012 blog

I recently attended the BBC Midlands Sports Personality Awards at the Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham. I work for a smaller regional company that has won a main contract on the Olympic Park. Earlier I had given a presentation in Walsall about how smaller regional companies can also win work helping to build the Games through CompeteFor.

Now, back to the glamour of the glittering black tie event, which was attended by a number of medal winners from past Olympic and Paralympic Games. I met Anita Lonsborough who won a Swimming gold in the Rome 1960 Olympic Games when I was 11.

But of particular interest to me and my company was Eleanor Simmonds, winner of two Paralympic gold medals in the Swimming pool in the Beijing 2008 Games. In recognition of Ellie's achievement, our company, which is tunnelling a deep drainage network for the Olympic Park, has named one of our tunnelling machines after her.

Eleanor wins gold in the 100m Freestyle at the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games:


Our tunnelling machine named after Eleanor:



We had taken photographs of the machine and this was my opportunity to let Ellie know what we had done and show her the photos. Her reaction was amazing when I told her we'd named the machine after her. She said: 'What? Like they do to a ship? That's really cool, thank you so very much!'

Ellie later went on the win the top prize of BBC Midlands Sports Personality of the Year as well as being named the BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year for 2008. Not bad for a 14-year-old.

One thing that struck me during this wonderful evening was what we as constructors on the Olympic Park are involved in. This isn't just another project, this is THE project. We are all champions in our own way – the infrastructure and the venues we will build will all be worthy of a gold medal when they are finished. The Games really will be the greatest show on earth.