How the great race for Olympic glory welcomes winners from further afield

It's a matter of enormous pride that the home side should break its own record, and to athletes from Yorkshire that they carve out an even greater slice of the glory in London. Yorkshire's involvement in the Games will also include hosting six pre-Games training camps across the region.

Wheelchair athlete Hannah Cockroft from Halifax has been racing for only three years but is already a world record holder at 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m. The first woman to cross the line of the London Mini Wheelchair Marathon in both 2009 and 2010, the 18-year-old works for Leeds City Council as an athletics development officer, studies at college and puts in nine long training sessions a week. With only a 2,000 grant towards her training expenses, replacing her racing chair, wheels and gloves regularly requires considerable sacrifice as well as some sponsorship from a caravan insurance company.

Just seeing the Olympic Stadium, now nearing completion on the 500-acre former brownfield site in east London, sets Hannah's pulses racing. "Getting to London will be worth all the time, effort and expense," she says. "Imagining yourself inside that building, with team mates, family and friends and the whole country cheering you on is so exciting. It's really going to give me something to focus on mentally."

Hannah is one of a group of young athletes who've travelled to London along with representatives of business in the region and cultural organisations, at the invitation of Welcome to Yorkshire. The tourism organisation is determined to lure London visitors into spreading their wings beyond a couple of days at the Olympic Games. Visitors who don't already know their way north can already follow the Yellow Brick Road, thanks to Welcome to Yorkshire branding all over the gates in the Tube at King's Cross.

Today's visit is about inspiration, though. Although there may still be the best part of two years' slog ahead for the hopefuls, having a peek at the Theatre of Dreams must give added impetus to those punishing sessions on the track, in the pool or at the gym. Meeting Olympic triple jump gold medallist Jonathan Edwards only adds to the excitement.

Dewsbury's finest, Matthew Johnson, 14, and currently Great Britain's most successful swimmer across all age groups with 43 national titles and more than 50 GB records, looks at the wave-roofed Aquatics Centre and definitely feels his destiny beckoning.

And why not? He already swims faster than the great Michael Phelps did at his age, and is equally strong across all four strokes. His ambition is to win gold medals in all strokes and the 4x100m medley – in world record times, naturally. "Michael Phelps's best time in the medley at my age was 4'27" and mine is 4'22". His best so far is 4'03". I think I can be better than him by 2012."

Training means waking up at 4am and training at Sheffield's Pond's Forge pool four times a week for two hours before school. He does another two hours in the evenings, including land training. Scooping up gold medals wherever he goes, his main focus now is to shave vital seconds off his performance before Olympic trials in May 2012.

The event will include women's boxing for the first time, and Nicola Adams, 27, is said to be a certainty for a medal. Just back from winning silver at the Women's World Boxing Championships in Barbados, she has competed at the sport since taking up a boxing exercise class with her mother in Leeds at the age of 12. She won five national championships at 54 kilos, and now competes at 51k, currently occupying the number one spot in the country.

"Seeing the amazing facilities going up at the Olympic Park has made me even more determined," says Nicola. "I train three times a day, six days a week, and each session is 60-90 minutes. It means everything to me to have the chance to be Olympic champion."

THE BUSINESSES

THE London 2012 Olympic Park construction is on schedule and so far slightly under budget, and the permanent buildings that will form part of its legacy are 75 per cent completed.

The elegant, green and innovative velodrome which will host indoor cycling is the first to be completed, with a massive installation of timber supplied by Sheffield-based company Arnold Laver.

A list of 16 companies were given "preferred supplier"' status, but the firm has so far managed to supply 50 per cent of the wood products used at the Olympic site – including the supporting trusses and Siberian redwood cycling track for the velodrome. All products had to be from certified sustainable sources.

The influx of orders – worth "a seven-figure sum" to the company, according to managing director Andrew Laver – has helped to bolster

the business against even more ravages from the economic crisis.

After the announcement that London had won the 2012 Games, Laver and his team set out to use the opportunity to develop the business in the South of England, opening a depot east of London.

Andrew Laver brought togethera group of 12 of his company's key suppliers to work together and secure as much work as possible.

The strategy has paid-off, and the group has supplied 3,000 cubic metres of wood products to the Olympic site.

The recession had caused a drop in profits from 115m to 85m for Arnold Laver, due to shrinkage in UK house building and shop fitting, but the London 2012 orders have helped to replace part of those losses keep jobs secure. There had been 300 redundancies from its previous 850 staff.

"We went out to get that business and kept getting more," says Andrew Laver. "Anyone sitting in Yorkshire thinking Olympic business will come to them is deluding themselves. It's research, tenacity, hard work and having a good product that work."

Contact with Olympic contractors and architects has also led to Laver now supplying timber for the new extension to Heathrow Airport's Terminal Five.

Many Yorkshire companies have won business with the London 2012 Olympics, including the supply of cabling, drainage and electrical products, wall cladding, steel products and painting services.

A small gift and cardboard products company based in Pickering won the licence to use the Olympic logo and mascots on book-related products and souvenirs which will be in the shops from early next year.

The contract will be worth about 1m to A Company Called If, which employs 40 and accounts for 80 per cent of the UK bookmark business – including the Disney licensed products. The Olympic products will

mean up to 10 more staff will be taken on.

"It's been a thrill getting the work," says marketing manager Sarah Blackwell. "It means we can anticipate getting into new

kinds of outlets including tourist attractions and airport shops. And being able to offer new jobs in Pickering is fantastic."