2023-05-20 10:37:21
Published on :
Brittney Griner, detained for ten months in Russia, became a basketball player again with the Phoenix Mercury on Friday. She was greeted with a “standing ovation” at the WNBA season opener in Los Angeles.
Back on the court five months after the end of his Russian nightmare. Basketball player Brittney Griner, detained for ten months in Russia and released last December, was greeted with a “standing ovation” on Friday, May 19, during the WNBA season opener in Los Angeles with her team, the Phoenix Mercury .
“You have to get back to work and know how to put everything aside,” said Brittney Griner, about the emotions that went through her, during this moment as solemn as it was warm, on the microphone of ESPN, which broadcast this match in direct.
The Crypto.com Arena, certainly sparse but where Kamala Harris was present, was indeed not going to fail to reserve such a welcome to Brittney Griner, on the occasion of this meeting marking a return to normal for the star, double champion Olympic with Team USA in 2016 and 2020.
“Thank you for everything you did to support Brittney, because I know it was tough. It was very difficult for you, because a team is a team – it’s family,” the vice said. -president to the Mercury players whom she visited in the locker room.
The last time Brittney Griner walked on a North American league floor was on October 17, 2021, in the fourth game of the final lost against Chicago Sky. That is 579 days. As for his previous match in competition, it dated back 474 days in the Russian championship, with Ekaterinburg.
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.
“Happy Day”
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 encouraged the 32-year-old player, who is also a figure in the LGBT + community.
“It’s a day of joy,” said Phoenix coach Vanessa Nygaard in her pregame speech. “Throughout last season, I started every press conference by reminiscing how many days she had been gone. And until the day we found out she was about to go home, no one didn’t think it was going to happen.”
“It was heavy every day. But it’s great to have this game today (Friday). It’s a miracle that she is here and everyone who attends this game today will witness ‘a miracle: she came back from a Russian prison and is playing basketball again in the WNBA. It was thanks to the strength and the will of so many people that this happened,’ she said. added.
With AFP
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