Lower than two years in the past, the W.N.B.A. star Brittney Griner was beginning her nine-year sentence in a penal colony in Russia, stitching uniforms for the Russian army and subsisting on spoiled meals. She lived for glimpses of the sky. She had by no means been farther from the game that made her a family identify. A smoking behavior she’d picked up in jail had diminished her lung capability. She hardly ever acquired to listen to from her spouse, Cherelle, or her household and pals, and she or he had no concept when — or if — she can be coming dwelling.
Griner was arrested on the Moscow Airport in February 2022, when officers discovered two vape cartridges in her backpack with 0.7 grams of hashish oil. (To deal with Griner’s persistent ache, a doctor in Arizona had prescribed medical marijuana, nevertheless it was in opposition to the regulation in Russia.) She was charged with unlawful drug possession and smuggling “a big quantity” of narcotics into the nation and was despatched to jail.
That December, after 10 months of detainment in Russia, she was lastly launched. She jumped again into taking part in, pondering the routine and familiarity would floor her. However the transition was rocky, and she or he is just now again in form. On Might 7, she’ll publish a memoir, “Coming Residence,” detailing her ordeal.
Listed here are the highlights from my profile of the basketball star after I met her at a apply facility in Phoenix.
She Endured Dehumanizing Remedy
Within the cell the place she was first held, a feces-stained gap within the floor served as the bathroom. The jail guards introduced her a milky porridge with a bit of oily fish that sickened her. She had no solution to clear herself — no towels, cleaning soap, toothpaste, shampoo or deodorant. She ripped T-shirts into a number of items: for her enamel, for her physique, for bathroom paper.
“I’ve by no means been so soiled in my life,” she mentioned. The degradation would push her to ponder suicide.
Griner, an overtly homosexual skilled athlete, is sort of seven toes tall. Jail guards stared at her physique and questioned her gender. The therapy triggered recollections of bullying from her childhood. Anytime she was transported to a physician or a court docket appointment, she was pressured to take a seat in a cage too small for her peak. As soon as a guard locked Griner’s wrists collectively after which chained the lock to the guard’s wrist. Griner felt like a canine on a leash. She was pressured to undress and be photographed nude by docs.
Griner began smoking, as much as a pack a day. She remodeled bodily, dropping muscle mass and gaining weight from commissary gadgets, like packaged noodles, muffins, salami and condensed milk. She felt depressed, and even sit-ups in her cell felt past her capability.
Slicing Off Her Locs Was a Uncommon Second of Company
After her preliminary detainment, Griner was moved to a girls’s detention middle about two hours exterior Moscow.
When pictures of Griner had been first broadcast all over the world, her lengthy locs had been shorn, and it appeared like a sign of the cruelty she was enduring. However Griner instructed me that chopping her hair was really a uncommon second of company throughout her imprisonment. The jail was barely heated, and her locs by no means absolutely dried. She nervous that she would catch pneumonia, so she determined to chop them off. ‘‘The minimize was horrible however not as unhealthy because it may have been,’’ she instructed me with amusing.
Griner Personally Appealed to Biden
Griner wrote a letter to President Biden that was despatched on July 4, begging him to not neglect about her. “Please do all you possibly can to deliver us dwelling,” she mentioned. “I nonetheless have a lot good to do with my freedom you can assist restore.” Dennis Rodman (publicly) and Donald Trump (privately) mentioned they might fly to Russia to get her. (Neither did.)
Griner’s most devoted and protracted advocates had been Black girls, a lot of whom argued on-line that their authorities’s response felt muted. Hundreds despatched Griner messages in jail.
A Guard Slipped Her a Observe Saying She Was Going Residence
In late November, a couple of month after she’d been moved to a penal colony 200 miles exterior of Moscow, Griner acquired a name from the U.S. Embassy. They mentioned that discussions for a prisoner swap had been underway. She was excited however cautious. On Dec. 2, she was loaded right into a cage and transported to a males’s jail, the place she feared she must serve the remainder of her sentence.
That evening, a guard slipped her a be aware telling her she was going dwelling. The subsequent morning, she boarded a airplane, with no concept the place it was going. The airplane landed in Abu Dhabi. Greeting her was Roger Carstens, the particular presidential envoy for hostage affairs within the State Division. In that second, Griner knew she actually was going dwelling.
She Suffered From PTSD After Her Return
In jail, Griner had a singular focus: freedom. At dwelling, she felt adrift. She was decided to return to basketball, present process a rigorous 100-day coaching routine and re-joining her W.N.B.A. crew, the Phoenix Mercury. However her 2023 season was uneven, and she or he skilled signs of Put up-Traumatic Stress Dysfunction. Remedy has taught her that there isn’t any “earlier than” anymore.
As she prepares for the upcoming season, she likes to go deep into the mountains close to her dwelling in Phoenix. “That’s a giant factor for me — getting away from the screens and the cameras.”
