Who is Brittney Griner, the American basketball star freed by Russia?

American basketball star Brittney Griner, released on Thursday in a prisoner swap between Washington and Moscow, is one of the world’s most dominant players, a reputation she has put to good use in community advocacy black and LGBT+. Arrested in February at a Moscow airport with a vaporizer and liquid containing cannabis, she has been in recent months at the center of a diplomatic standoff between the United States and Russia, against a backdrop of war in Ukraine.

Sentenced to nine years in prison for “drug trafficking” in August, the 32-year-old player was detained in a penal colony.

Griner culminates at 2.06 m and wears a size 54

Culminating at 2.06 m and wearing 54, Brittney Griner, who plays indoors, has established herself as one of the best basketball players in the opposing rackets and in defense since her professional debut. From her height, Griner fired a rare weapon in women’s basketball: the dunk. It is also by this spectacular gesture, when a player puts the ball in the basket by folding it down angrily, that the player became known in 2007, in a video that went viral.

One-handed, two-handed, clinging to the hoop… At 17, Griner was already showing a nice panoply. “We were just saying to ourselves + This is the future of basketball +”, tells Time magazine Diana Taurasi, her future teammate at the Phoenix Mercury, franchise of the WNBA, the North American professional women’s basketball championship. She was thus the first player in the history of the World Championship to achieve a dunk in 2014, against China in the group stage. “I was extremely happy. Afterwards, I asked my friends, my family: have you seen it?”, she delivered after her performance.

Revelation of his homosexuality in 2013

Arriving with the label of physical phenomenon in the American league, Griner was selected first in the draft, the recruitment ceremony for the best young people, in 2013 and revealed to the public that she had bigger hands than LeBron James, star discipline. By his second year, Griner won the title with the Arizona franchise, already making a remarkable offensive and defensive contribution.

But his life goes far beyond the orange ball. In 2013, she revealed her homosexuality in an interview with Sports Illustrated magazine. She explains having been harassed during her childhood: “It’s hard. Being harassed because we are different. Being taller, my sexuality, everything…” A year later, she published her autobiography, In my skin. “I guess I started feeling different when everyone started telling me I was,” she wrote.

Teases during his adolescence

In middle school, “I was flat and thin, my voice was low.” Children laughed at her in the hallways: “She must be a boy. She’s not really a girl.” “You can pack your suitcase and get out of here!” her father shouted when she told him about her sexual orientation. A figure in the LGBT+ community, the native of Houston, Texas, who grew up with two sisters and a brother, becomes Nike’s first gay face, taking part in photo shoots where she wears men’s clothing.

In 2020, in the wake of historic protests against police brutality suffered by African Americans, following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, Griner is one of the first basketball players to ask the WNBA to stop playing the anthem. national before the matches.

“Make no mistake about it, Griner was being held in Russia on spurious charges as a political prisoner because of her identity as an American. The fact that Griner was both black and LGBT+ made her a even bigger target,” the National Black Justice Coalition said in a statement after the basketball player’s release.

An impressive track record

Along with her career at the Mercury in Phoenix, Griner sometimes plays in the offseason for Chinese or European clubs, as do some WNBA players, especially for higher salaries. She won four Euroleagues with the Russian club Ekaterinburg and became popular in the country. She also accumulates titles in selection: double Olympic champion in 2016 and 2020, she also gleans two world championships in 2014 and 2018.

In September, his shadow hovered over the 2022 World Cup in Australia, won by “Team USA”. The players, who emailed him “messages of love, support and encouragement” during his detention, did not wear his number 15 jersey during the competition.