Brittney Griner, the crying basketball player talks about the Russian prison: “I will never go abroad again”

She failed to hold back the tears in front of the journalists present, during the press conference which was held almost four months after the end of his detention: Thursday, April 27 the American basketball superstar Brittney Griner spoke for the first time about his period of captivity in Russia from the headquarters of his new team, i Phoenix Mercury of the WNBA.

“I am no stranger to difficulties,” Griner said in the Footprint Center, during the press conference organized by his wife Cherelle. “In life more or less everyone has to face adversity. This was pretty big. I just relied on mine discipline, on my hard work, to overcome it”. Her athletic “spirit” helped the player endure the days of captivity. “You train a lot, you find a way to grind, just put your head down and keep going and keep going,” Griner said. “You can never stay stopped and that was my salvation; never stand still, never focus too much on the present and never look ahead to what is to come”.

The basketball player also declared that she will no longer play abroad “except for the Olympic Games“. In his speech he also wanted to remember the American citizens detained in Russia: the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich e l’ex marine Paul Whelanurging them to “stay strong, keep fighting, don’t give up”.

The athlete had been arrested in February 2022 at the airport of Mosca, on charges of carrying hash oil in his luggage. She was later sentenced by Russian law to 9 years of prison for drug possession and smuggling. After months of negotiations, which also saw the intervention of President Biden, she was released from Moscow in exchange for the arms dealer Viktor Bout. His release came after almost 300 days.