A Tokyo 2020 Olympian has put her medal up for auction just two week after the event to help save a child’s life.

Polish athlete Maria Andrejczyk won Silver in javelin on August 6 during the Tokyo games.

Just five days later, she announced she would be accepting bids for the medal in an effort to help raise funds for Miłoszek Małysa, an eight-month-old-baby who needs to travel to Stanford University in California to have life-saving heart surgery.

Maria Andrejczyk is a cancer survivor

Maria did not know young Miłoszek at the time but felt like she needed to help after seeing desperate please from his parents.

She said on Facebook: “Miłoszek has a serious heart defect, he needs an operation.

"He also has support from above from Kubuś — a boy who did not make it on time, but wonderful people decided to donate his funds to Miłoszek. And this is how I want to help too. It is for him that I am auctioning off my Olympic silver medal."

The family has already raised around half of the estimated $£280,000 needed and it was hoped money from the auction would make up the rest.

25-year-old Andrejczyk, a cancer survivor, also competed ithe Rio Olympics in 2016where she finished in fourth place.

She told The Times: "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. That is why I decided to auction it to help sick children."

Auction target met

This week, Andrejczyk announced a convenience store chain had made a winning bid, but refused to accept her medal.

"We have the winner of the auction!" she wrote. "On Friday I received this wonderful information, and due to the fact that you dears have already done wonders and joint forces have paid more than the equivalent of the initial medal to the Miłoszek account — I decided to end the auction so that our Miłoszek will receive the whole amount as soon as possible and can fly to the USA.

"The winner, and at the same time, the company I will be eternally grateful to is the company Zabka."

Zabka announced “the silver medal from Tokyo will stay with Ms. Maria."

The company made a bid after being “moved by the beautiful and extremely noble gesture."