A BUILDING firm will be plunging into its own Olympic challenge when it helps construct one of the last venues to be built for the London 2012 Games.

Ipswich-based Jackson Civil Engineering Group Ltd will build the substructure for the 5,000 seat Olympic Water Polo Arena, a temporary arena which will contain a 37m competition pool and a slightly smaller warm-up pool, at the Olympic Park.

The ground is currently being prepared before work starts in March on the substructure to the venue, which will be easily distinguishable by its silver wrap and an inflatable roof made from recyclable plastic.

It will stage the Men’s and Women’s Water Polo competition during the Olympic Games.

Ian Crockford, Olympic Delivery Authority project sponsor, said: “The start of work on the Water Polo Arena shows how far we have come since the diggers first went into the Olympic Park at the end of 2006.

“We are fully confident in the abilities of the companies which have secured the contract to deliver the latest addition to the east London skyline.”

The venue, which will be taken down and reused after the games, will be built at the main eastern entrance to the Olympic Park next to the Aquatics Centre, in what will be one of the most compact areas of the 500-acre site.