updated 9:06 p.m. ET Aug. 21, 2004

ATHENS, Greece - David Williams sat in the stands with a bottle of pills in one hand and a video recorder in the other.

An ugly scar ran up his left arm, from a recent dialysis treatment. He looked toward the track, waiting for his daughter Lauryn to run in the 100-meter final Saturday night. Nothing — not leukemia, kidney failure or his dire financial situation — would keep him from watching his 20-year-old baby in her first Olympics.

The announcer called her name. Williams jumped out of his seat, clapped and screamed, ‘Let’s go!’ He urged the folks around him to stand up and cheer.

Curious fans asked, ‘Who is that man?’ When told he was the father, they cheered him on, too.

He sat back down to watch from his view behind the starting line. Williams had his wife, daughters, and Lauryn’s mother there with him, everyone cheering and clapping as loudly as they could.

The gun went off. Lauryn bolted. David stood again, clapping harder, urging her on. She took silver in a personal-best 10.96 seconds, behind winner Yuliya Nesterenko.

“She’s only 20!” David screamed. “She’ll do it at the next Olympics!”

Fans offered handshakes and hugs. One posed for a photo. Life seemed perfect at that moment for the Williams family, which has endured so much over the last several years.

“This has probably been the best year of my life,” said her mother, Donna. “This tops it all off.”

Lauryn Williams looked to the scoreboard after the race, and saw her beaming family.

“I’m so glad they made it here,” she said. “I did see them, and they were going crazy.”

It certainly has been a whirlwind year. At the start of the outdoor season, Williams was still competing for the University of Miami. The 5-foot-3 dynamo ended up winning the NCAA title, then finished third at the U.S. trials to make the Olympic team.

After initially saying she would stay in school, she changed her mind after the trials, signing with an agent and Nike. A month later she was in Athens.

David Williams would never have made it here if it had not been for the generosity of Tim Wiebe, who read about Williams’ plight to raise money to pay for his trip to Greece. Wiebe, who owns a medical supplies company in Pennsylvania, is a cancer survivor and his brother has cancer, so he wanted to help.

He met with Williams, who was diagnosed with leukemia in 1989. Williams had raised $400 through various fund-raisers and charity drives, not enough to make it across an ocean. Wiebe asked what was needed to make the trip. Williams said $10,000.

“I said I would send him to Athens so he could see his little girl run,” Wiebe said by telephone from his home outside Pittsburgh in Sewickley, Pa. “He threw his arms back and said, ’God, you answered my prayers.”’

“We have to realize David’s life is in the final stages if he doesn’t get a kidney transplant. To know he was able to go to Greece to see his little girl run, that for me has been wonderful.”

Donna Williams also made it thanks to the generosity of people in her hometown of Detroit, thanks to a local radio station that campaigned for donations.

David Williams still undergoes his dialysis three times a week. He missed Lauryn’s races Friday because his treatments ran late and he couldn’t make it on time after encountering problems with his ticket and security. Williams goes for more treatment Monday, hoping each day that a matching kidney becomes available.

“It was really exciting to have my dad here,” Lauryn Williams said. “It was even better when I saw where he was sitting and how excited he was because he didn’t make it to the first two rounds.

“In fact, he was outside the stadium for both of the first two rounds, and I was like, ‘You come all the way to Greece and you didn’t even get to see me run?”’

He saw it all Saturday night.

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