Last weekend, at a friend’s baby shower in Manhattan, another guest asked me a question that has probably never been discussed alongside nappy inventory and nursery renovations: what’s going to happen to Brittney Griner?
On August 5, the US basketball star was sentenced to nine years in a Russian prison for having less than one gramme of hashish oil in her luggage while travelling through Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport in February. The timing of her arrest — just before the invasion of Ukraine — along with the ongoing negotiations for a potential US-Russia prisoner swap, have made Griner a household name, her face a tragic fixture on front pages around the world.
Which is why, as a sportswriter, I feel a specific ache when considering the totality of her current nightmare. Griner is currently the most famous basketball player in the world, not for her two Olympic gold medals or her five professional championships across the EuroLeague and the WNBA, but because she’s become a political pawn.