Last week marked One Year To Go until the start of the London 2012 Olympic Games. That phrase has been said by millions of people all over the world during the past few days, it is a hugely significant and exciting milestone in the Olympic cycle – for us as organisers and athletes.  The IOC was in town to formally issue the invitation to the athletes of the world to come to the Games, we celebrated the completion of the Aquatics Centre and we looked forward to a lot of hard work left to do!

Next summer is extremely exciting prospect for everyone involved and to me personally it signifies three things; our testing process, the sporting challenge and that all our work comes down to the competitions and athletes themselves. We have a group of current and former Olympic and Paralympic athletes who make up our Athletes' Committee with experience of 31 Games and 29 medals between them. Every key decision which will affect competitors goes through this group to ensure that our thinking reflects the athletes' needs.

Our test event programme began in May, signalling the start of a summer filled with Olympic dress rehearsals in the shape of international sporting events. We have navigated ourselves through five test events to date - marathon and race walk, tennis, equestrian, modern pentathlon,volleyball, canoeing and mountain biking - all of which were looking at a whole host of areas including athlete processes, the field of play, transport, crowd management, security, and technology to name just a few.

These testing processes are hugely important to us and have provided a lot of information so far. The most valuable thing we have done without doubt is to listen to the athletes. For example the Paralympic marathon wheelchair course will be adjusted following feedback from competitors and the equestrian platform at Greenwich Park received some comments. We're confident given the timescales next year we will get it right for the athletes. And if we can get it right for the athletes, then we are in a great place.


The test events will not only provide an opportunity for us to test. Athletes from 50 countries will be given the chance to compete in 26 Olympic venues where they hope to represent their country in 2012. As well as over 8,000 athletes, around 1,000 staff and 10,000 volunteers will be involved and 250,000 spectators will see world class sport. It's not on the scale of next year's events, but it's a perfect opportunity to test our venues, our systems and our people.

Speaking to athletes hoping to compete next summer, I know that they are absolutely focused on next summer. Most of them have qualification events coming up before teams are chosen, so they are fine tuning their training programme to peak at just the right time. We are doing something similar.

As well as testing the venues, we also have a huge amount of work to do before the venues are Olympic or Paralympic theatres fit for the world's best athletes.

Take the Olympic Stadium as an example – the seats are in, the turf is down but we still have lots to do. The track is being laid, we have to install scoreboards, fit out the 700 or so rooms within the Stadium. Catering and toilet facilities need to be installed, ready for the hundreds of thousands of spectators. The good news is the teams at LOCOG, our partners and our stakeholders are all fully focused on getting everything ready, so the Games are best they can possibly be for athletes and spectators alike.

Debbie Jevans is the Director of Sport at London 2012