Brittney Griner replayed in the WNBA, five months after being detained in Russia – Liberation

2023-05-20 10:35:58

The American basketball player, sentenced to nine years in prison in Russia before being exchanged for an arms dealer at the end of last year, again walked this Friday, May 19, on the floors of the WNBA, the North American championship of basketball, 579 days after his last game in the league.

She was greeted with a standing ovation. Five months after the end of her nightmare, Brittney Griner, detained for ten months in Russia, became a basketball player again with the Phoenix Mercury, Friday, May 19, during the WNBA season opener in Los Angeles. “You have to get back to work and know how to put everything aside”said Griner, about the emotions that crossed her during this moment as solemn as it was warm, at the microphone of ESPN, which broadcast her return to the American courts live.

The Crypto.com Arena, certainly sparse but where the Vice-President of the United States Kamala Harris was present, was indeed not going to fail to reserve such a welcome for Griner, on the occasion of this meeting marking a return to the normal for the star, double Olympic champion with Team USA in 2016 and 2020. “Thank you for everything you did to support Brittney because I know it was rough. It was very difficult for you, because a team is a team – it’s family.said the vice-president to the Mercury players she visited in the locker room.

The last time Griner walked on a North American league floor was on October 17, 2021, in Game 4 of the final lost to Chicago Sky. That is 579 days ago. As for his previous match in competition, it dated back 474 days in the Russian championship, with Yekaterinburg.

The pivot was arrested in February 2022 at a Moscow airport with a vaporizer and liquid containing cannabis, a product banned in Russia. She was about to draw for the Yekaterinburg team during the American offseason.

“A day of joy”

In August, she was sentenced to nine years in prison and then, after her appeal was rejected, was transferred in November to a penal colony in central Russia. Brittney Griner was finally exchanged in December for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, a prisoner in the United States.

Over the past five months, she has been training and preparing to become the dominant insider she once was. And for this recovery match finally largely lost (94-71) by her team against the Los Angeles Sparks, she more than convinced, finishing as top scorer (18 points at 7/9 on shots, 6 rebounds, 4 blocks).

With each of her actions, fans of both teams loudly cheered on the 32-year-old, who is also a figure in the LGBT + community. “It’s a day of joy”had welcomed in her pre-game speech, Phoenix coach Vanessa Nygaard. “Throughout last season, I started every press conference by recalling how many days she had been gone. And until the day we found out she was about to come home, no one thought it was going to happen.”