%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 As the first blog entry got exhausted. My second book |
| August 7, 2021. Tokyo. Maria Andrejczyk stood on the Olympic podium holding a silver medal. Her first Olympic medal. After everything—after the cancer, after the near-miss five years earlier—she'd finally done it. The medal felt heavier than she expected. One week later, she decided to sell it. Andrejczyk was 25 years old when she arrived in Tokyo, but she'd already lived several lifetimes of struggle. In 2016, at the Rio Olympics, she'd thrown 67.11 meters in the javelin—a Polish national record. She finished fourth. Fourth in the entire world. She missed the bronze medal by two centimeters. Two centimeters. The width of a thumbprint. The difference between an Olympic medalist and a name no one remembers. Then came 2017. A shoulder injury that wouldn't heal. Then came 2018. Osteosarcoma. Bone cancer. At 22 years old, doctors told her the tumor had to come out. Surgery. Chemotherapy. The possibility that her athletic career was over before it really began. Most athletes would have stopped there. Accepted that fourth place was the best they'd ever achieve. Moved on. Andrejczyk went back to training. By 2019, she was competing again. Not just competing—thriving. She finished second at the European Team Championships. She qualified for the World Championships. And in 2021, she set a new Polish record: 71.40 meters. The third-best throw in women's javelin history. When she arrived in Tokyo for the 2020 Olympics (delayed to 2021 by the pandemic), she carried all of it with her. The near-miss. The cancer. The years of fighting back. On August 7, 2021, she threw 64.61 meters. Silver medal. Olympic medalist. "I fought like a lioness through a lot of pain and depression," she said after the competition. That medal was proof. Proof that the cancer hadn't won. Proof that two centimeters in Rio wasn't the end of her story. Proof that she'd survived everything thrown at her and still reached the top. One week later, scrolling through Facebook, she saw a fundraiser. Eight-month-old Miłoszek Małysa had a severe heart defect. His blood pressure was so high it was damaging the arteries in his lungs and heart. He was under home hospice care in southern Poland. His family had exhausted every option in Poland. The only hope was surgery at Stanford University Medical Center in California. The cost: 1.5 million Polish zloty. Approximately $385,000. For surgery. For travel. For a chance. The family had raised about half. They were running out of time. Miłoszek's fundraiser had another layer to it—donations from the family of Kubuś, another little boy with a heart defect who "didn't make it in time." His parents had chosen to pass their collected funds to Miłoszek, giving one child the chance their son never got. Andrejczyk read the story. She thought about the medal in her apartment. She thought about what it meant to her—and what it could mean to someone else. She posted on Facebook: "Miłoszek has a serious heart defect, he needs an operation. He already has a head start from Kubuś—a boy who didn't make it in time but whose amazing parents decided to pass on the funds they collected. And in this way, I also want to help. It's for him that I am auctioning my Olympic silver medal." The auction lasted days. Bids came in from across Poland and beyond. Sports fans. Strangers. People who believed in what she was doing. On August 16, she announced the winner: Żabka, a Polish convenience store chain. They'd bid $125,000—enough to close the gap for Miłoszek's surgery. "It is with the greatest pleasure that I give Żabka this medal, which for me is a symbol of struggle, faith and pursuit of dreams despite many odds," Andrejczyk wrote. That should have been the end of the story. An Olympian sells her medal. A baby gets surgery. Everyone moves on. But Żabka wasn't done. The company released a statement: "We were moved by the beautiful and extremely noble gesture of our Olympian, so we decided to support the fundraiser for Miłoszek. We also decided the silver medal will remain with Mrs. Maria." They were giving the medal back. They'd still donate the $125,000. But Andrejczyk could keep her medal—the one she'd fought cancer to win, the one that proved she'd survived. Andrejczyk responded simply. "The true value of a medal always remains in the heart. 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." In interviews later, she tried to downplay her decision. She didn't think it was extraordinary. She'd won a medal. A baby needed surgery. The math was simple. But the math wasn't simple. That medal represented five years of fighting back from Rio. It represented surviving cancer. It represented every morning she woke up in pain and trained anyway. It represented the moment she finally—finally—stood on an Olympic podium. And she was willing to give it away after one week. Miłoszek's family would get the funds they needed. The baby would travel to California for surgery at Stanford. Maria would keep her medal—not because she demanded it, but because Żabka understood that some gestures are too beautiful to accept. The story went viral. Millions of people shared it. News outlets around the world covered it. Strangers cried reading about it. Because Maria Andrejczyk had answered a question most of us never have to face: What would you give up for a stranger's child? She'd survived cancer. Missed an Olympic medal by two centimeters. Clawed her way back to Tokyo. Won silver. And when a baby needed help, she didn't hesitate. That's the real medal. Not the one hanging in her home in Poland. The one that lives in the choice she made—the one that proved greatness isn't measured in meters thrown, but in lives saved. Seven days after becoming an Olympic medalist, Maria Andrejczyk showed the world what it really means to win. |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
