With just over two years until the biggest show on earth, reporter DAN KEEL took a tour of London's Olympic site to check on its progress.

NOT a lot of people know this - but nine miles of new roads and 22 miles of cycle paths and footpaths have been built to feed the capital's Olympic site.

A guided tour of Stratford's incredible London 2012 complex is jam-packed full of facts like this - facts which blow the mind in terms of the venue's sheer size and complexity.

How on earth could anyone begin to plan a project of such enormity?......Speaking of earth, did you know that more than 800,000 tonnes of soil has been taken away from the old rubbish site in east London to make way for the main Olympic stadium - enough to fill the Royal Albert Hall, nine times.

But make no mistake about it, although the stadium will be the crown jewels of the site, it is just one of many ambitious venues which make up the Olympic village.

News Shopper: The Olympic stadium in its current form

An aquatics centre (swimming pool), a velo park (cycling track) and a handball arena all surround the 80,000 seater stadium, along with a huge accommodation complex housing 10,000 Olympians, and a media centre big enough to home five jumbo jets.

Work is on schedule, and as I toured the 500 acre site in a London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) bus, hundreds of busy workmen slogged away in the sun while lorries, trucks and tractors scurried around them in what has already become a fully-fledged town of it's own.

Andrew Altman is chief executive of the Olympic Park Legacy Company, which was set up to run the site over the next 25 years and ensure it is not just used for the 2012 games.

He said: “We have the unique opportunity to transform this area of east London over the next two decades.

News Shopper: The 50 acre Olympic site is on schedule “Our challenge is to build a lasting legacy by planning, developing and managing the park to become, in time, a new prosperous metropolitan area of the city with thousands of new homes and jobs, schools, health centres and other infrastructure which are integrated into the surrounding area."

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The Olympic Park Legacy Company says the London games will leave behind:

- A flexible stadium able to seat up to 80,000 spectators

- An aquatics centre featuring two 50m pools with moveable floors

News Shopper: The Olympic aquatic centre

- A velo park for cycling events featuring a velodrome, a BMX track and mountain bike trails

- The Orbit – a 115m viewing platform for the games and its legacy

- 62,000 square metres of business development space in the broadcast centre

- 29,000 square metres of office space in the press centre

- 30 bridges linking the site internally and to the surrounding areas

- A combined cooling heat and power plant capable of heating all of the developments proposed across the park

- Thousands of new homes

Sports equipment

Around 900,000 items of sports equipment will be needed for the Olympic Games including:

- Three metal detectors (beach volleyball)

- 92 ball pumps (water polo, basketball, handball, football)

- 1,424 FIFA-approved footballs

- 1,100 badminton shuttlecocks

- Eight trampolines

- 65,000 towels