An Olympian from Poland auctioned her silver medal from the Tokyo Games to raise money for a operation for an 8-month-old infant boy. She was then told by the buyer that she could keep her prize.
Maria Andrejczyk, a 25-year-old javelin thrower who overcame bone cancer and a shoulder injury to compete at this year’s Olympics, said she decided to auction her medal to help the boy knowing how much she had to “fight against adversity and pain.”
The money is for Milosz Malysa, an infant with a heart defect whose family has been raising funds for operation in the United States. Milosz’s parents posted last week that the boy was at risk of dying soon without the surgery.
‘The true value of a medal always remains in the heart. A medal is only an object, but it can be of great value to others. This silver can save lives, instead of collecting dust in a closet. That is why I decided to auction it to help sick children. I didn’t spend long thinking about this, it was the first fundraiser I came across and I knew it was the right one,’ Andrejczyk wrote on Facebook.
According to reports, Zabka, a popular convenience store chain in Poland, bid 200,000 zlotys ($51,000) but said it would let the athlete keep her medal.
“We were moved by the beautiful and extremely noble gesture of our Olympian,” Zabka said.
Fans have contributed an additional 300,000 ($76,500) to help the boy.
Andrejczyk missed the bronze medal in the 2016 Rio Olympics by just 2 centimeters, then battled back into shape after a 2018 bone cancer diagnosis.
She recovered in time to compete in the Tokyo Olympics, where her throw of 64.61 meters earned her the silver medal behind China’s gold-medal winner Shiying Liu (66.34 meters).
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