[ad_1]
Michael Conroy/AP
In her first public assertion since being free of Russia, Brittney Griner says she’ll play within the upcoming WNBA season.
The 2-time Olympic gold medalist shared the information — and expressed thanks for the individuals who helped deliver her residence — in an Instagram publish on Friday, per week after she returned to the U.S. in a prisoner swap.
“I additionally need to make one factor very clear,” she wrote. “I intend to play basketball for the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury this season, and in doing so, I sit up for having the ability to say ‘thanks’ to these of you who advocated, wrote, and posted for me in individual quickly.”
The 2023 WNBA season begins on Could 19. Griner was the Mercury’s main scorer and rebounder within the 2021 WNBA season, through which Phoenix misplaced within the finals.
Griner went to Russia to play for a group there through the U.S. offseason, which many WNBA gamers do due to basketball’s gender pay hole. She was detained in February and sentenced to 9 years in jail on drug smuggling fees
Griner landed in San Antonio final Friday after her launch in a prisoner change. The White Home mentioned on the time that she was in good well being and good spirits.
“It feels so good to be residence!” Griner wrote on Instagram. “The final 10 months have been a battle at each flip. I dug deep to maintain my religion and it was the love from so a lot of you that helped maintain me going. From the underside of my coronary heart, thanks to everybody in your assist.”
She thanked her household, the WNBA, her authorized group, the San Antonio Fort Sam Houston Base medical group, the Biden-Harris administration, and several other people and organizations who lobbied for her launch.
Griner’s agent, Lindsay Kagawa Colas, instructed NPR’s All Issues Thought-about on Wednesday that the athlete is doing properly and “benefitting from the entire sources that the U.S. authorities supplies to somebody like her, who has been by a lot and is now into this subsequent part of reintegration.”
Griner already had hit the basketball courtroom, she mentioned, emphasizing that “crucial factor is that the issues that she’s doing now, it is all her alternative.”
Colas added that Griner needs to make use of her newfound platform to assist folks, significantly others who’ve been wrongfully detained overseas. That features Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine first imprisoned in 2018 who continues to be held in Russia regardless of the discharge of two different Individuals there this 12 months. Griner “asks about him continuously,” her agent mentioned.
Griner herself talked about Whelan’s plight in a portion of her Instagram publish that she addressed to President Joe Biden.
“President Biden, you introduced me residence and I do know you might be dedicated to bringing Paul Whelan and all Individuals residence too,” she wrote. “I’ll use my platform to do no matter I can that will help you. I additionally encourage everybody that performed a component in bringing me residence to proceed their efforts to deliver all Individuals residence. Each household deserves to be complete.”
[ad_2]
Source link