She suffered a shoulder injury in 2017.
She was diagnosed with bone cancer in 2018.
She recovered, and made a comeback.
In the Tokyo Olympics, she won a silver medal for her javelin throw.
She said that the medal was a “symbol of struggle, faith and the pursuit of dreams despite many adversities.”
Now comes the best part.
She did not use that medal or the fame for making money. Instead, she decided to auction her medal to raise money for a poor child who needed heart surgery. The child–eight-month-old Miloszek Malysa—was no relative of hers; his family was unknown to her.
But Maria Magdalena Andrejczyk, the Polish javelin champion, heard of this infant who needed surgery, for which he had to be taken to Stanford University, USA.
She decided to auction her medal, and contribute the money towards Miloszek’s surgery.
What comes next, too, is a tribute to human goodness.
Zabka, a Polish convenience store, placed the top bid of 51,000 US dollars; others chipped in $74,000, making a total of 125,000 US dollars. But, instead of keeping the medal, the directors of Zabka decided to return it to Maria Andrejczyk. They made this statement on Facebook, “We were moved by the beautiful and extremely noble gesture of our Olympian. “We also decided that the silver medal from Tokyo will remain with Ms Maria, who showed how great she is.”
There are things far greater than money, and far more beautiful than Olympic victories, right?
Fr Joe Mannath SDB
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