Polish javelin thrower Maria Andrejczyk has auctioned off her Tokyo 2020 Olympic silver medal to fund urgent heart surgery for an eight-month-old baby.
The 25-year-old finished first in qualifying for the final at the Summer Games but was outthrown by just under two meters by China’s Liu Shiying to earn the silver – her first Olympic medal.
However, in a Facebook post last Wednesday, Andrejczyk explained that she was auctioning off her Olympic medal to raise funds for eight-month-old Miłoszek Małysa to have life-saving heart surgery.
“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.
According to Małysa’s mother, Monika, there are no longer any viable options to help the infant in their home country, Poland, with their last hope being an operation in Stanford, California.
Andrejczyk explained that Małysa needed 1.5 million zloty ($383,000) for the urgent surgery. With half the money already raised, she said she wanted to fundraise the other half.
