sentenced to nine years in prison by a Russian court, the basketball player is trapped in the geopolitical crisis between Russia and the United States. Moscow confirmed, on Saturday, “discussions” for “an exchange” of prisoners with the United States.
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The atmosphere is at the party in the spans of the Saitama Arena, in Tokyo, this Sunday, August 8, 2021. “You will put me a little barbecue sauce to accompany these thirty pawns”, laughs Brittney Griner, facetious, In front of its partners who congratulate it. The Women’s Basketball Team of the United States has just won at the expense of Japanese women in the final of the Olympic Games tournament.
During this match, Team USA’s strategy was simple: passing the ball in Brittney Griner as a priority and leaving the latter, from the top of its 2.03 meters, to manage alone, in the racket and under the basket opposing. Unstoppable. With thirty points registered (fourteen successful shots on eighteen tempted) – A record in the Olympic final in the ladies -, number 15 has largely contributed to Victory (90 -75) and at the gain of a seventh consecutive Olympic title for the United States.
A year has passed. Brittney Griner has, against his will, swapped the prison for a prison and courts. The American basketball player has been imprisoned for almost six months in Russia. In mid -February – Some days before the start of the war in Ukraine -it was arrested at the Moscow Airport in Cheremetievo because of the presence, in its luggage, of cannabis vaping liquid, prohibited in Russia, but legal in many American states.
Thursday, August 4, she was sentenced by the Khimki court, near Moscow, to a sentence of nine years in prison for “possession and drug trafficking”. A “insane” decision, according to her lawyers, who announced the will of the player to appeal this judgment.
While Brittney Griner found himself in spite of herself plunged into the geopolitical crisis between Washington and Moscow, in the middle of a conflict in Ukraine, Russia said he was “ready” to discuss a prisoners with the States- United. “The discussions on the very sensitive subject of an exchange of (prisoners) take place via channels chosen by our presidents,” confirmed the director of the North America department at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Alexandre Dartchiev, in a published interview Saturday August 13 by the Russian press agency Tass.
university star
At 31, Texan has been part of the world’s basketball gratin for almost ten years. She punctured the screen in 2013: from her first match in the Phoenix Mercury jersey in Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), the NBA NBA North American League in men, she scored two dunks. Until then, only two players had made this spectacular gesture in match, which consists in coming to “slam” the ball, with one or two hands, in the hoop of the basket, then hang on to the latter.
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