Olympic Javelin thrower Maria Andrejczyk has auctioned off her Tokyo Games silver medal for $125,000 to help an infant in her native Poland get life-saving heart surgery.
She posted on her Facebook page on Wednesday that she came across the fundraiser for 8-month-old Miłoszek Małysa, who had a serious heart defect and needed surgery, and she decided to auction off her Olympic medal to help raise money for his surgery. It is Maria’s only medal.
Maria who missed an Olympic medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics by just 2 centimeters, and suffered from a shoulder injury in 2017 and was diagnosed with bone cancer in 2018. She went through recovery and was able to make a comeback and win her first Olympic medal in Tokyo earlier this month.
On Monday, she confirmed on Instagram that Żabka, a Polish supermarket chain, won the auction with a bid of $125,000. The money raised will allow the young boy to get the necessary surgery at Stanford University Medical Center.
In a surprising twist of events, Żabka decided to give the medal back to Andrejczyk. Which is wonderful!
Find out more about this heartwarming story here!
(Photo courtesy of Hanasaki/Canva)
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