Network

• The Creative Finder
• The Bazaar
• Deals
• Status Is Down

Community

• Sign up / Log in
• Discussion Forums
• Calendar of Events

Photo ID 169914340 © Peter Kováč | Dreamstime.com

Olympics Javelin thrower Maria Andrejczyk decided to sell her silver medal that she had won at Tokyo 2020, helping an infant in her home country of Poland to receive heart surgery and saving his life.

Andrejczyk placed second in the javelin at the Tokyo Games. This was a win made only more satisfying after Rio 2016, where she missed obtaining a medal by just less than an inch, and her 2018 recovery from bone cancer. This Tokyo silver medal spent just a week with her before she made the decision to let it go.

Last week, Andrejczyk posted on Facebook that she discovered the fundraiser for eight-month-old Miłoszek Małysa, who had a critical heart defect and was in need of surgery.

She explained that the fund already had a headstart from Kubus, another boy who unfortunately didn't make it in time. However, his parents decided to pass on the money they raised for him.

“And in this way, I also want to help,” she writes, describing the medal as a symbol of “struggle, faith and pursuit of dreams” despite all odds.



Later, she announced that the winner of the auction turned out to be Żabka, a Polish supermarket company. The medal went for over half a million złoty (US$128,400), enough to cover the surgery’s costs.

However, as ESPN reports, in a heartwarming twist, the company returned the medal back to Andrejczyk.






[via ESPN, image via ID 169914340 © Peter Kováč | Dreamstime.com]

More related news