After being imprisoned in Russia for nearly 10 months, WNBA star Brittney Griner’s safe return to the US on Friday was marked by a stop at a Texas military medical facility for a routine evaluation, the US State Department said.
Griner arrived at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, early Friday – the next leg of a journey back to US soil after what the US government described as illegal detention that often left her family and loved ones with little information or comfort.
“We are now focused on ensuring that Brittney and her family are prioritized and that all available assistance can be provided to them in an appropriate manner,” US State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel said at a press conference on Friday.
Officials have not said how long Griner will be at the medical center, but the basketball star was “in good spirits” and “incredibly polite” after her release, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told CNN.
Griner, who was arrested at a Moscow airport in February on drug charges and later sentenced to nine years in prison, was released as part of a US-Russia prisoner swap for notorious convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout.
The swap, which took months to negotiate and drew mixed reactions in the US for not including his colleague Paul Whelan, took place on the tarmac at Abu Dhabi airport on Thursday.
Shortly after the exchange was successfully completed, US officials reunited Griner with her family. That call “was both moving and memorable” to hear Griner on the phone with her wife, Sherrell, who was present at a meeting in the Oval Office, Secretary of State Tony Blinken said.
“Their strength, their resilience, was nothing short of an inspiration,” Blinken said.
Texas Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee told CNN Griner was able to call her father from the plane.
“Everybody wants to see her and maybe even wants to see her back here at home, but I know it was a happy phone reunion to hear his daughter’s voice,” he said.
Jackson Lee — who represents Texas’ 18th Congressional District, including Griner’s hometown of Houston — said aspects of the two-time Olympian’s current well-being “need to be reviewed.”
“We hear that she talked to her family members here, she sounded good, she was looking forward to seeing them, and we also know that she pursued her own options both in terms of the exchange and when she landed in San Antonio.”
In a statement, Griner’s family thanked President Joe Biden and the administration, along with former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, whose Richardson Center worked on the family’s behalf to secure Griner’s release and is trying to follow the example of Whelan.
“We sincerely thank you for your kind words, thoughts and prayers – including Paul and the Whelan family who have been so generous with their support for Brittney and our family during what we know is a heartbreaking time,” it said. the statement.
“We pray for Paul and for the speedy and safe return of all wrongfully imprisoned Americans.”
Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner, released an updated statement on her Instagram page Saturday afternoon, thanking the many people she said supported her and Brittney during Griner’s imprisonment in Russia.
As she did in her statement with President Biden on Thursday, Sherrell also called for the repatriation of Paul Whelan and other Americans held abroad.
“Yesterday my heart was completed thanks to the collective efforts of MANY! I am humbled by their hearts. To care for another, for some stranger, for some friend — is humanity in its purest form!” Griner’s wife wrote.
“As BG and I begin our journey to heal our minds, bodies and spirits — I wanted to say a personal thank you to some of the hands. visible and invisible, this helped me to see my wife again!’ her statement continued.
While many are celebrating Griner’s return home — seen as a diplomatic victory between two of the world’s biggest nations bitterly at odds over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — the fate of Whelan’s release remains unclear.
Whelan – a citizen of the US, Ireland, Britain and Canada – is currently imprisoned in a Russian penal colony after being arrested in December 2018 on espionage charges, which he has denied. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison. He, like Griner, had been wrongly declared in custody by US officials.
The US tried to get Russia to swap Griner and Whelan for arms dealer Bout, but Russian officials have not budged on the issue, with Russia saying both Americans’ cases were treated differently based on the charges he faced. each of them.
In an interview with CNN, Whelan expressed his disappointment with how the negotiations went.
“This is a precarious situation that needs to be resolved quickly,” Whelan told CNN in a phone interview. “I would hope that (Biden) and his administration would do everything they could to bring me home, no matter what the price would be at this point.”
Biden insisted his administration is continuing its efforts to bring Whelan home.
“It wasn’t a choice about which American to bring home,” Biden said Thursday. “Unfortunately, for completely illegal reasons, Russia is treating Paul’s case differently than Brittney’s case. And while we have not yet managed to secure Paul’s release, we are not giving up. We will never give up.”
Paul Whelan’s sister, Elizabeth Whelan, told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Friday that the public discussion surrounding a potential exchange “has been very difficult for my family to listen to,” adding that she believes her brother is “discussed as his own value to be what we she should give it up for him.”
Asked about her family’s discussions with the US government over her brother’s imprisonment, Elizabeth Whelan said: “I think we’ve made it pretty clear – that as far as I’m concerned, at least – my brother deserves more , is worth more than any Russian criminal.”
CNN speaks with Paul Whelan in an exclusive phone call from a Russian prison
Griner’s arrest and subsequent return to his home country once again highlighted the pay disparity faced by female athletes in the U.S. — which has prompted female WNBA players to go overseas to earn more during the off-season. , including countries such as Russia.
WNBA Commissioner Kathy Engelbert told CNN Friday night that while efforts to increase salaries are continuing, there is still a long way to go.
“For too long women’s sports have been undervalued, underinvested,” said Engelbert, who noted that less than 1 percent of corporate sponsorship funding goes to women’s sports.
Engelbert also pointed out that the WNBA is a fairly young sports league, founded in 1996. However, she added that the organization is working on a three-to-five-year plan to increase player pay.
“We’re getting phased out as we start to grow and build real momentum,” he said.
And as those changes slowly happen, Engelbert said she believes players will continue to play overseas, especially since the average tenure in the WNBA is about five years.
“We’re never going to cut them off from making more money in non-US leagues during our offseason. What we want is for them to come and play at the highest level once they’re back here at home.”
Angel McCoughtry, a friend of Griner’s who also played in the Olympics and in the WNBA, also played for a Russian club during her offseason and acknowledged that she earned more there. But he also said he wouldn’t return given Griner’s treatment.
“Russia was a place that paid us a lot of money for our talent, more so than being here in our country,” McCarthy told CNN on Friday. “It’s sad to say that I’m rich not because of the WNBA, but because of my years overseas. I would make my WNBA salary in a month overseas – my entire salary”
McCoughtry said it’s possible for WNBA players to earn more if they receive the level of promotion their male counterparts do.
“If you promote women as well as men, people will watch,” McCoughtry said. “Once we get the brand partnerships behind us and they promote us and people know who we are, they will come to watch. It will grow.”
