Brittney Griner: The US basketball player’s emotional return to the field

after ten months in Russian custody
US basketball player Brittney Griner is back on the court for the first time – “Grateful that I’m here”

The US basketball player Brittney Griner was imprisoned in a prison in Russia for around ten months. Now she has completed a game with her team Phoenix Mercury for the first time. Her comeback was emotional.

After her release from Russian custody last December, Brittney Griner has found her way back into professional sports. The basketball player completed her first game for the Phoenix Mercury team on Friday.

Before the preparatory game kicked off, there was loud applause for Griner, who had already played for the Phoenix Mercury in the Urals before her time as a player with the UMMC Yekaterinburg team. Hearing the national anthem is “a very different feeling,” AP News quotes Griner as saying. “It’s like when you go to the Olympics, you sit there and you have gold hung around your neck, the flags go up and the anthem is played, it’s just different.” According to their coach Vanessa Nygaard, the moments when the national anthem played were emotional for the whole team. “We looked at each other and just had chills,” said Nygaard.

The seven-time All-Star player scored a two-pointer in the first minute. Overall, Griner had 17 minutes of play, ten points and three rebounds. However, her team lost 90-71 to the Los Angeles Sparks.

“I can’t wait for the day when it’s just basketball”

It was no ordinary game day for the 32-year-old. “I didn’t know how it would go to get back into the game,” she said afterwards. “I’m grateful to be here, that’s for sure,” she was quoted as saying by the media. Because she didn’t think “that I would play basketball so quickly”. It feels good, you definitely feel valued. “But I can’t wait for the day when it’s just basketball.”

After all, the athlete was arrested at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport in early February 2022 and later sentenced to nine years in prison for possession of cannabis oil. She spent almost a year in prison and part-time detention in a penal camp. After around ten months in prison, she was released as part of a prisoner exchange for the Russian arms dealer Viktor But.

Team has high hopes for Brittney Griner

Griner is now campaigning for other Americans imprisoned abroad. In late April, the basketball player and Phoenix Mercury announced a partnership with Bring Our Families Home. The campaign was founded last year by affected family members. Meanwhile, Griner is scheduled to return to the WNBA women’s basketball league this season. Her team’s season begins on May 19 with an away game against the Los Angeles Sparks. With their return, there is great hope that the Phoenix Mercury will again move into the league finals.

Sources: BBC, AP News, WNBA