Feel good story of the day. Polish athlete Piotr Malachowski earned a silver medal in the 2016 Olympics. And now he’s sold it. Normally, when you hear about athletes selling their medals it’s the sad end of a sad story about addiction and/or poor decision making. But this one is a beautiful story about a very good decision.
Malachowski has auctioned his medal from the Rio Olympics to help fund the treatment of 3-year-old boy Olek Szymanski, who is suffering from retinoblastoma. The first thing Malachowski did after returning to Poland was to sell his hard earned symbol of triumph. The Olympic silver medalist doesn’t seem content with his athletic accomplishment, so he stepped up his heroic efforts a little further.
The 33-year-old athlete, who has proven to the world that he is not just a winner but a true hero, said that the medal is now worth more than it did a week ago when he received it. The discus thrower also believes the boy’s health is as precious as, if not more precious than, any Olympic medal.
Malachowski planned to raise $84,000 to pay for Szymanski’s cancer surgery, which is two-thirds of the total cost. The Polish foundation Siepomaga also contributed to the fundraising efforts. The athlete, however, announced on Facebook that the eBay auction would be discontinued. At the time, bids had already reached $19,000, but the Olympic hero revealed Dominika and Sebastian Kulczyk, the Polish billionaire siblings, had decided to buy the medal with enough money to cover the treatment cost.
This is the perfect kind of story for the website Get Religion which often highlights stories that have a Christian angle that is not investigated or just covered up by the mainstream media.
You’d have no idea from reading any of the stories I saw online about this man about what inspired him to do such a thing or what inspired the Kulcyks. I’d love to know more about that aspect of the story (which I suspect would be there.) Mind you, I could be wrong. But I might not be.
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