Tokyo Olympics silver medalist Maria Andrejczyk, javelin thrower, has auctioned off her medal for $125,000 to help an infant in her native Poland get life-saving heart surgery.
Polish javelin thrower Maria Andrejczyk has auctioned off her Tokyo Olympics silver medal for $125,000 to help fund the heart surgery of an eight-month-old boy in her country.
Poland abka Polska's convenience story company bought Andrejczyk’s silver medal for $125,000 and after winning the bidding war they asked the javelin star to keep her medal. The child will now undergo surgery at Stanford University, as per Daily Mail.
Maria Andrejczyk had won silver with a throw of 64.61 metres while Kelsey-Lee Barber of Australia took bronze with 64.56, her best performance of the season. She was only behind China’s Liu Shiying, who won the gold medal after throwing a distance of 66.34 meters. Andrejczyk, fourth at the 2016 Games and the favourite after producing a world-leading 71.40 metres in May, struggled to find that form.
The Polish Javelin star opened up on her decision to auction off her medal, saying it did not take long to make her decision as she wanted to help him by auctioning her prized possession.
"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.
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