There is only one way to put it - the London 2012 Velodrome is absolutely stunning.

While the media spotlight has been firmly fixed on the Olympic Stadium and the raging battle between Premiership rivals Tottenham and West Ham United to take over the venue post-2012, workers have quietly be ploughing away on the other side of the Olympic Park creating something truly iconic.

I have been to the London 2012 Velodrome on two occasions but on each of them, I had been slightly underwhelmed by the work-in-progress construction site I had been met with despite being continuously told it would look fantastic when finished.

As someone with little vision, I was sceptical that it would but I was proved completely wrong as I today visited the completed version of the Velodrome as the structure was officially unveiled.

From the outside, it appears as if an elegant and futuristic flying saucer has nestled neatly onto the green grass of East London.

Walk inside and you cannot help but be dazzled by the bright lights, the unbelievably smooth surface of the wooden track and 6,000 cushioned seats which unlike most Velodromes, go all 360 degrees round the track to create the best possible crowd atmosphere during events.

To give you some idea of the scale of the project, the Velodrome was constructed by the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) over a period of 23 months with 2,500 workers involved.

Some 48,000 cubic metres of material was excavated to create the bowl for the Velodrome - enough to fill 19 Olympic-sized swimming pools - while 2,500 sections of steelwork were installed to form the Velodrome structure.

The cable-net roof lift took eight weeks to complete and features some 16 kilometres of cabling while the 250 metre International Cycling Union (UCI) approved indoor track is fixed into place with more than 350,000 nails.

Sir Chris Hoy, who became the first ever cyclist to try out the Velodrome today, has declared it the fastest ever and "the best in the world" - and he is rather well placed to make such a judgement - and after the Games, a road cycle circuit and mountain bike course will be added to the Velodrome and BMX circuit to create the Lee Valley VeloPark.

Not bad at all.

But for me, the most striking statistic is that this phenomenon was completed on time - some 18 month before the start of the Games - and on budget at a cost of just over £90 million ($145 million).

The journalist inside me wanted to find something to criticise but apart from the poor coffee that I was served from the temporary vending machine, it is difficult to find any fault with the Velodrome which I don't doubt will be one of the shining stars of the London 2012 Games.

However, the immense success of the Velodrome construction does raise an issue.

If this iconic London 2012 venue can be delivered so efficiently on budget, why can another, just a few hundred metres away, not be?

I talk, of course, of the Aquatics Centre; the so called "highlight" of the Olympic Park.

The London 2012 bid book price estimated the venue would cost £73 million ($118 million) to build but the anticipated final cost in the latest figures released earlier this month show that the price is now £269 million ($434 million) and rising.

The escalating price was what saw the Olympic Stadium "wrap" temporarily scrapped - before private investors came to the rescue - as the ODA looked where they could cut money from one venue to give to the Aquatics Centre.

The staggering increase cannot just be down to design difficulties with the roof and construction complications because of the location and when I saw ODA chairman John Armitt in understandably jubilant mood in the Velodrome today, it was a question that I couldn't help but ask him.

"We are extremely pleased and proud about what we have done with the Velodrome but we have to recognise Velodrome and the Aquatics Centre are very different buildings," Armitt explained.

"The Aquatics Centre is a much more complex building and so we are spending a bit of extra money now to make sure that we get the environment inside it right.

"That is very tricky when you have got temporary wings in place.

"But we'll do it and we'll be finished on time.

"It's undoubtedly a hiccup but it's still going extremely well and I'm sure that the Aquatics Centre will be something to be very proud of when it's finished."



Perhaps so - but I feel the tax-payer, who is, after all, funding the majority project, will be a little more proud of a venue that has been constructed at nearly a third of the cost but looks just as fantastic.

It is a point even Armitt would have difficulty disagreeing with.

"We've always thought of the Aquatics Centre as the iconic building of the Olympic Park but the Velodrome is equally so," he continued.

"The architect, the engineer and the contractor have worked so well together.

"You don't always get that but here they have done it extremely well here."

When all is said and done, I am sure the Aquatics Centre will look magnificent but for all that money, of course it should.

For me, the Velodrome is the bargain buy that punches well above its weight and it is a more than a fitting stage for Sir Chris and his fellow Brits to take on the world.

There were a lot of dignitaries in attendance today all looking for superlatives to sum up the Velodrome but it was Sport and Olympics Minister Hugh Robertson who perhaps articulated it best.

"It is difficult not to be blown away by this," he told me.

"It is not only a fantastic piece of architecture and an iconic sporting symbol but it has and undoubted legacy element in place and despite all the other magnificent venues here; the Velodrome is the hidden gem of the Olympic Park."

On time, on budget and truly world class, perhaps the London 2012 Aquatics Centre should take a few tips from the magnificent Velodrome.

Tom Degun is a reporter on insidethegames