Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner has a new appreciation for representing Team USA in the Olympic Games in Paris.
This will be Griner’s third Olympics but her first since President Joe Biden freed her from Russian captivity.
The Russian government originally sentenced Griner to nine years in prison for bringing a personal amount of hashish oil aboard a domestic flight with her Russian Premier League Team.
President Biden freed her in exchange for a convicted arms dealer.
Nineteen months after that harrowing ordeal, Griner revealed that representing Team USA in Paris means the world to her.
“It means everything to me honestly,” Griner told The Associated Press in an interview. “For me to now have the honor to wear it again and potentially win gold is icing on the cake for everything.”
Griner is already a two-time Olympic gold medalist.
As the Associated Press noted, Griner had gone to Russia to play basketball in search of supplementary income to her WNBA salary. The 33-year-old now says she will only play in America unless Team USA Women’s Basketball asks for her services—she revealed she feels safe traveling with the national team as opposed to a Russian Premier League team.
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