The numbers first because they were the only thing normal on this Friday evening in Los Angeles: Phoenix Mercury lost the first game of the season in the US women’s basketball league WNBA 71:94 at the LA Sparks. Brittney Griner had 18 points, six rebounds and two blocks.
“Not good because we didn’t win,” Griner said afterwards, as if she were a normal basketball player giving normal answers to normal questions after losing. But then she remembered, even as she was answering the question about her own well-being, that this was of course not an evening like any other: “It was great to be back on the floor, to take part in a real game and to experience the fans . It was great to feel that.”
“I’ve learned to appreciate a few things that used to take for granted”
Brittney Griners played her first WNBA game since the October 2021 finals series, which Phoenix Mercury lost 3-1 to Chicago Sky. It had taken 579 days until this game. Griner had spent ten months in Russian custody, her case became a state affair, a political issue that caused a worldwide sensation: on February 17, 2022, Russian officials found a cartridge with hashish oil in her luggage at Moscow Airport. In December she was released in exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor But.
Congratulations from all over the country, including politicians: US Vice President Kamala Harris visits the cabin of the Phoenix Mercury team.
(Photo: Mario Tama/AFP/Getty)
So the first game, every gesture, every word analyzed: the 10,000-plus spectators at the downtown LA arena rose from their seats as Brittney Griner stepped onto the floor. And Griner stood up when the anthem was played before the game. That was also quite remarkable: in the course of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, she had left the field every time and demanded that the anthem not be played at all before sporting events. “The great thing about this country is that you can speak out about grievances, you can question things, protest against them. I was literally in a cage and couldn’t get up. Now when I saw my flag and heard my anthem, I really wanted to stand.” , Griner said, “I’ve come to appreciate a few things that previously seemed obvious.”
There has been public debate in the US about this political swap because some people who see 32-year-old Brittney Griner – person of color, gay, marijuana user, equal pay activist in professional sports – as a woke symbol, den prisoner exchange not as a man-for-man exchange – but as an exchange of a female athlete for a man whose nickname is “the merchant of death”. This is probably why US Vice President Kamala Harris was present. For the vice president, her service to Griner was one of the few opportunities of her tenure to date in which she was able to distinguish herself. She visited both teams before the game. After hugging Griner, she told the Mercury cast, “I know how hard this has been for all of you – a team is a family.”
Like Kamala Harris, tennis legend Billie Jean King and basketball work of art Magic Johnson, 63, also came. Griner said after the game that she enjoyed the excitement in the hall and “felt the love of the fans”. But now it’s time to return to normality and focus on sport: “I appreciate all of this because I’ve learned through imprisonment that the next day isn’t guaranteed. I’m allowed to But don’t let that distract you, I have a job to do.” However, that shouldn’t happen that quickly: The game on Friday evening in LA was the first in 579 days. The first home game in Phoenix followed on Sunday, against Chicago Sky. It was anything but a normal afternoon.