Polish javelin thrower Maria Andrejczyk auctions her Tokyo Olympics silver medal to help fund baby's heart surgery

The child will now undergo surgery at Stanford University, as per reports. The fundraiser was started by Maria Andrejczyk's family to collect 1.5 million Polish zloty (Rs 2.86 crore) for the same.

Polish Javelin thrower Maria Andrejczyk (Source: Twitter)

In a heart-warming gesture, Polish javelin thrower Maria Andrejczyk auctioned off her silver medal, which she won in the recently concluded Tokyo Olympics, for $125,000 to fund a life-saving heart surgery of an eight-month boy.

The 25-year-old wanted to help a stranger following her medal-winning feat, and said on her Facebook page this was the first fundraiser she stumbled upon.

“It was the first fundraiser I entered and I knew it was the right one," she wrote on her Facebook wall on August 11 in her native language. The fundraiser was for a young Polish boy who goes by the name of Miloszek. He has a serious heart defect and requires 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,” she wrote on social media.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Maria M. Andrejczyk (@m.andrejczyk)

The child will now undergo surgery at Stanford University, as per reports. The fundraiser was started by his family to collect 1.5 million Polish zloty (Rs 2.86 crore) for the same.

Meanwhile, Andrejczyk on Monday confirmed that Polish convenience store Żabka won the bid and around Rs 1.4 crore was raised. However, in a surprising twist of events, the supermarket chain Żabka decided to give the medal back to Andrejczyk and donated the huge sum of money so that the child could have another shot at life.

Andrejczyk finished at the second spot in the women’s javelin throw event after a throw of 64.61 m in the Tokyo Olympics. The 25-year-old Olympian was only behind China’s Liu Shiying, who won the gold medal after throwing a distance of 66.34 meters.

Notably, Andrejczyk missed out on a medal at Rio Olympics 2016 just by 2 centimeters. She suffered from a shoulder injury in 2017 and was diagnosed with bone cancer in 2018. After recovery, she made a comeback by winning her first Olympic medal in Tokyo earlier this month.