The iconic image of the Olympic rings rising above the stadium at last year’s opening ceremony was made possible by hundreds of metres of black wire-rope, made in Barnsley.

Hawk Lifting, of Grimethorpe, supplied the lifting gear for the showpiece stunt.

“We were a small cog in a big wheel,” said director of Hawk Lifting, David Nixon.

“But it was exciting to be involved in such a huge national celebration and to try to spot our wire ropes on television pulling up the Olympic rings - and the smoking chimneys - at the opening ceremony.”

Hawk Lifting designs, manufactures, supplies and inspects a wide range of lifting gear and rigging equipment and expects to reach a £1m turnover this year.

David and co-director Barrie Johnson set up the business six years ago.

The company has designed crane beams for Morrison's supermarket food production lines and even designed the hooks and lines needed to enable life-size dinosaurs to move their heads and acrobats to perform hundreds of feet above the ground, in world-touring shows, Walking with Dinosaurs and Cirque de Soleil’s Zarkana.

Exports to customers in India, New Zealand, Gibraltar and Libya also represent a growing part of their business. They have even supplied a couple of winches to a sultan’s yacht.

David said: “We have surprised ourselves how quickly we’ve grown and gained clients. We started our own business in Barrie's garage in 2007. On the back of a very detailed business plan, we finalised our growth targets over a pint.”

David and Barrie now have a 4,000 square foot manufacturing facility at Spring Park industrial estate, Grimethorpe, and employ a workforce of eight.

They have just invested £100,000 in specialist machinery to enable them to manufacture more of their own bespoke engineered and wire rope products and recruited an in-house design engineer.

The company aims to double turnover in the next three years and recruit four more engineers.