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A perfect stranger to many got off the private plane.
It didn't matter that the major American news networks were
broadcasting live his arrival
at a military base in San Antonio, Texas, on December 9.
Brittney Griner
, a 32-year-old basketball player, had just set foot on homeland soil after being
freed by the Russians in a historic
prisoner exchange.
Behind it hides an exciting personal and professional story of a
condemned young woman
to 9 years in prison
for carrying less than a gram
of cannabis oil for vaping.
Griner is 206 centimeters tall, she is one of the best basketball players in the world and
the medal of
olympic gold
on two occasions
, in Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo.
She wears a 51 foot, is a lesbian, has been married twice and
He has overcome many crises in his life.
, including the ten months that she spent in detention by the regime of
Vladimir Putin
.
View this post on Instagram
At school they made fun of her, not only because of her height and appearance but also because of her sexual orientation.
"It's hard.
That they mess with you for being different, just for being bigger, my sexuality, everything
", he told in an interview with
Sports Illustrated
in 2013. It was the moment chosen to speak openly about her homosexuality and since then become an activist in the LGBTQ community.
"Don't worry about what others will say, because they will always say something, but,
be true to yourself and let that shine
.
Don't hide who you really are," she added.
Before he had already confessed to his parents.
He was then in high school.
His father, a Harris County sheriff and former Vietnam veteran
he took it so badly that he pushed her to leave home
.
He took her in as an assistant coach for several weeks.
She tells it in her memories,
In My Skin: My Life On and Off the Basketball Court
, published in 2014. But Griner moved on, with his life and his career.
View this post on Instagram
She entered the professional women's basketball league, the WNBA, as a
Phoenix Mercury first choice
in 2013. Shortly after, he met his first wife, the player Glory Johnson.
They met at a basketball campus in Las Vegas and
Griner's attraction to
Tulsa Shock player
it was instantaneous, even though he was straight.
Johnson later confessed in an interview that she fell in love with her personality.
DOMESTIC ABUSE
The day Griner proposed to her
in a room full of people
, with mobile phones capturing the moment, began to cry.
"He couldn't stop shaking his head, because
it was too much for me at the time
". She wasn't ready. But she couldn't say no. She couldn't with so many witnesses present.
No wonder the marriage didn't last and ended in drama.
In April 2015, Phoenix police came to her home in response to a domestic abuse call.
Both
They got into a fight and suffered minor injuries.
.
Still, they were married two weeks later, and in October Johnson gave birth to twins via
in vitro fertilization
.
In June of the following year they were already divorced.
He met his second wife in his college days at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, but
They didn't start dating until years later.
, after the player's first failed marriage.
The Mercury center proposed to Cherrelle Watson in
August 2018
and they married a year later.
Watson played a key role during the
Griner's arrest process in Russia
, where he was playing basketball taking advantage of the WNBA break.
His exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout was
specially celebrated by the president
Joe Biden
, "a day that we have worked on for a long time," he said.
His wife, present at the White House with the president, thanked him for
the enormous support shown during "one of the darkest moments of my life"
, "overwhelmed with emotion" as she was.
View this post on Instagram
After the trauma experienced in Russian lands, Griner has returned to her best friend, her lover, her life partner, as she described her the day he proposed to her.
"
You rescued me from the ashes and held me when I couldn't even stand up
.
You really are my backbone and my spirit that keeps me going.
I love you darling".
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