It’s hard to believe that the journey towards the Games, which started when the event was awarded to the city of Birmingham back in December 2017, is nearly over. And what a journey it has been!

Organising a major sports event during a global pandemic has not been without its challenges but I am incredibly proud of my team for what they have achieved and very grateful to our partners for their unwavering support.

One of those partners is Sandwell Council who have overseen the construction of the Sandwell Aquatics Centre. This is our only brand-new venue for the Games and so it has been a critical project and now, with a 100 days to go, we are delighted to announce that this venue is complete.

It is a truly superb facility which will be in operation during every single one of our 11 days of sport, hosting swimming, Para swimming and diving too. However, we know that this facility is really just on loan to us from the people of Smethwick, to whom it really belongs, as once the Games is over it will be converted into a community facility. We hope that local residents will be inspired by the magical sporting moments which we know will take place there this summer.

The Alexander Stadium, our other major construction project for Birmingham 2022, a venue which is almost unrecognisable from the one which occupied the site for so many years, is almost complete too, with temporary seating which will increase the capacity for the Games to 30,000, continuing to be added over the next few days. In fact, this week the stadium will host its first athletics events since the £72 million ($94 million/€87 million) refurbishment and in a month’s time it will once again host international athletics, with the Birmingham Diamond League being staged there on May 21.

Other elements of the Games are coming to fruition too. Just last month we launched the Birmingham 2022 Festival with Wondrous Stories, a fabulous free show which thousands of local people came together for, standing and sitting side-by-side looking on in awe as local artists and young people combined to deliver a world-class cultural experience.

The Birmingham 2022 Festival is a six-month-long celebration and showcase of the cultural magnificence of the West Midlands, and it includes 107 different community projects which have been supported by a special fund set up by Birmingham City Council, another of our partners, without whom these Games simply wouldn’t be happening.

We’ve always promised that the Games will be a celebration of the host city and region, showcasing local talent wherever possible, and that is a promise we intend to keep. There are local artists, performers, dancers, designers and producers involved in not just the Festival, but also in our Opening and Closing Ceremonies and in the Festival Live sites which will be held in Birmingham city centre and seven of the city’s suburbs.

Thousands of local people have also been selected to be part of the Commonwealth Collective, our army of volunteers who will help welcome the athletes and officials from 72 nations and territories, and the one million spectators who have already purchased tickets to watch the 286 sessions of sport and Para sport that we have on offer.

From today we expect thousands more people to snap up tickets as, to coincide with 100 days to go until the Games begin, our tickets have gone back on sale.

This final major release includes tickets for every single one of the 19 sports and eight Para sports we have on offer, so today we are urging people to make sure they secure their seat.

The Games has been a long time coming but whether it be during our school visits, our youth programme activity, our community roadshows, our drop-in sessions or our visits to local parks, sports clubs and other organisations, we have felt the excitement and anticipation for this event continuing to build and we’ll do everything possible to make sure that Birmingham can make the most of this moment in sporting history.