Maria Andrejczyk, a medal for saving a life

“This silver can save lives, instead of collecting dust in a closet,” Maria Andrejczyk said

An Olympic silver medalist from Poland put her medal up for auction to help pay for an 8-month-old baby’s heart surgery, but the winning bidder turned the tables and let her keep it.

According to her Facebook page, javelin thrower Maria Andrejczyk won one of the country’s 14 medals in Tokyo, and she was determined to help a stranger in some way.

Andrejczyk, 25, discovered a fundraiser for little Miłoszek Małysa, who suffers from a rare heart condition and will need surgery to survive. She decided to auction the medal and donate the money to Miłoszek’s family.

Polish convenience store chain Zabka Polska ponied up $125,000 as of the winning bid and then said in a Facebook post that it would let Andrejczyk keep the medal.

The fundraiser for Miłoszek on a Polish GoFundMe-type site is 104% complete as of August 2021.

Andrejczyk finished fourth in the javelin competition at the Rio 2016 Olympics. In 2018, she was diagnosed with bone cancer but battled back to win silver in Tokyo.

“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,” Andrejczyk wrote.

In an interview, 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.

“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.”

After it won the auction, Żabka returned it to Andrejczyk and donated for the boy’s operation in her name.

“We were moved by the beautiful and extremely noble gesture of our Olympian, so we decided to support the fundraiser for Miłoszek,” Żabka tweeted. “We also decided the silver medal will remain with Mrs. Maria.”

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