By the time the Olympic flame sheds its light across east London three years from now we'll be ready to host the equivalent of 26 World Championships running concurrently in 34 competition venues. Less than three weeks after the Closing Ceremony of the Olympic Games, we’ll be doing it all again for the 20 Paralympic Sports in 21 venues.

We'll have made provision for more than 20,000 media representatives in the Main Press Centre (MPC) and International Broadcast Centre (IBC), have prepared for 17,000 athletes and officials from 205 nations to settle into the Olympic Village, trained 70,000 volunteers from all over the country and distributed nine million tickets.

Along the way we'll have procured 200,000 temporary seats, 400 generators, 17,000 beds and 5,000 tonnes of sand. It's a long 'to do' list by anyone's standards!

All of which means we want to understand fully the impact that the London 2012 Games will have on the marketplace and make the most of the expertise and experience that already exists.

We're engaging venue owners, local authorities, delivery partners, suppliers, contractors and stakeholders to ensure we can put on a spectacular, safe event within a clear, achievable timetable.

We're putting sport at the very heart of some of our most historic and instantly recognisable sites in a way that's never been done before. To do this we'll need to work together with those who understand these sites better than us.

It's important we showcase London - and the UK - as a venue so athletes, spectators, visitors and the worldwide television audience tuning in are able to experience the heritage of the capital alongside modern, state-of-the-art facilities.

We know we'll be pushing boundaries and that the end result will be both memorable and rewarding. London will be a memorably Olympic and Paralympic city in 2012 and the whole of the UK will welcome the world.

I believe the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be made up of an extraordinary collection of unique venues, ensuring that people all over the country are proud to see London and the UK at the centre of the sporting world.