For the 31-year-old city-born athlete's father, John, who has lung cancer, is unable to travel and will miss out on sharing his youngest daughter's dream in the Beijing Olympic arena.

The heptathlete, who now lives in Birmingham, where she trains, flew out to her pre-Olympic training camp in Macau last week.

She will line up in the heptathlon on the first two days of the athletics programme on August 15 and 16, and hopes to end her heptathlon career on a high before concentrating on long jump next year.

Feature: Diary: The Beijing 2008 Olympics
The ET is following Olympic hopefuls Louis Smith and Julie Hollman at the Beijing games - peterboroughtoday.co.uk/olympics08.

Although John will miss out on the live action, the 67-year-old promises to watch his daughter's every move on television.

John (67): "I am over the moon. The Olympics will be the climax of her career. Coming back with a medal will cap it off for her.

"I would love to be there, but I can't travel because of the illness, however, sometimes you can see just as much, if not more, on the television.

"I have been and watched her at the world and European championships and the Commonwealth Games, so I don't feel I have missed out too much."

However, the athlete's mum, Carole, a former team manager at Peterborough Athletic Club, and sister Anne, who was a British under 23 heptathlete, will fly out to see Julie on August 14.

Carole (62), of Church Street, Deeping St James, near Market Deeping, said: "Julie has been an international for 15 years now, and we always try to follow her whenever we can.

"It is disappointing that John can't make it to Beijing, as Julie has worked so hard to get in this year.

"There has been something in her head that told her she should do it for her dad. He has been her inspiration to fight off injuries and push herself as far as she can.

"I wasn't going to go to Beijing with John being ill, but Julie's sister talked me into it, and I am very excited.

"Julie is hoping to do her best and hopefully achieve a personal best."