A grocery-store chain offered to buy the medal from javelin thrower Maria Andrejczyk, and they won the bid at $125,000. But, in a surprising twist, they didn't take the silver medal from her, saying they were just glad to support the noble cause.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on August 20, 2021. It has since been updated.
25-year-old Polish javelin thrower Maria Andrejczyk, who overcame bone cancer and a shoulder injury to compete at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, walked away with a shiny new silver medal, reports the Associated Press. But, after her phenomenal win, when she came across a fundraiser for an eight-month-old boy who needed life-saving heart surgery, the athlete knew she had to lend a helping hand, especially since she knows how it feels to be helpless because of a medical emergency.
In a Facebook post that Andrejczyk shared on August 11, 2021, she wrote that the fundraiser she came across convinced her to raise funds to help the toddler Miłoszek Małysa, who was born with a critical congenital heart defect called total anomalous pulmonary venous return (TAPVR).
Polish javelin thrower Maria Andrejczyk auctioned off her Olympic silver medal to help send an 8-month-old boy to Stanford University for heart surgery.
— Front Office Sports (@FOS) August 17, 2021
Polish store chain Zabka won the auction with a bid of $125K, then returned the medal to her 🥈 pic.twitter.com/taZkhb7Mpz
The toddler was waiting for life-saving heart surgery at the Stanford hospital in the United States, and the parents had no idea if they would even be able to save their son's life. There's an old adage that says that people need to walk a mile in someone's shoes to understand their situation, and who better than Andrejczyk to understand what the little boy and his family were going through.
"I didn't spend long thinking about this, it was the first fundraiser I came across and I knew it was the right one," she wrote. So, instead of displaying her first Olympic medal proudly, she decided to put it to good use to save the young boy's life, according to CNN.
She wrote that the "amazing parents" of another boy who needed surgery but died before he could have the operation will contribute the money they raised for their own son to Miłoszek, as per HuffPost. "Miloszek has a serious heart defect and is in need of surgery. He already has a head start from Kubus – a boy who didn’t make it in time but whose amazing parents decided to pass on the funds they collected. And in this way, I also want to help. It’s for him that I am auctioning my Olympic silver medal." The medal “is a symbol of struggle, faith and pursuit of dreams despite many odds,” she shared.
Eventually, a Polish grocery store chain named Zabka won the auction. The bid for the medal ended with Zabka offering $125,000 for the treasured piece of silver. But, here's the twist, the grocery store chain refused to accept the medal from Andrejczyk. The company shared via Twitter that they were just happy to be a part of this "noble cause."
"It is with the greatest pleasure that I am handing over to you Żabka, the little big store chain, my medal, which to me is a symbol of faith and perseverance in the face of great obstacles," the kind-hearted athlete announced on her Facebook.
In an interview with a Polish sports program, Andrejczyk said that winning the medal brought her "enormous happiness" and that she wanted to "pass that happiness on" to a young child who could use some of it, per NBC News.
"The true value of a medal always remains in the heart," Andrejczyk said. "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."
References:
https://apnews.com/article/2020-tokyo-olympics-sports-europe-90655c0019d3af6cb292cdd79ebf60f0
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/polish-olympian-auctions-medal_n_611d545ce4b0c69681043b1c
Cover image source: (L) siepomaga.pl (R) Getty Images | Photo by Matthias Hangst
