CNN –
Fresh from her happy return to the United States after months in Russian custody, Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner is back on a basketball court.
But their reintegration into American life is far from over, as is the WNBA players’ fight for equity as American professional athletes. The issue was highlighted by the 10-month detention of Griner, who had gone to Russia to play basketball during the WNBA’s offseason.
Wearing a Title IX jersey, Griner’s first step onto a Texas basketball court Sunday was a shock, his agent Lindsay Kagawa Colas told ESPN.
The 32-year-old had arrived at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio two days earlier for a routine evaluation after being released Thursday from what U.S. officials said was illegal detention. She was released in the middle of Russia’s war in Ukraine in a prisoner exchange by notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
It’s unclear how long Griner will remain at the medical center or whether the Phoenix Mercury center will return to the WNBA, Colas told ESPN. The 2023 WNBA regular season begins on May 19. CNN has reached out to Colas for comment.
“If she wants to play, it’s going to be hers to share,” Colas told ESPN’s TJ Quinn. “He has the holidays to rest and decide what happens without any pressure. He is doing very, very well. He seems to have endured this quite amazingly.”
But the fact that Griner typically plays basketball in Russia during her offseasons in the WNBA highlights the inequities facing female professional athletes in the United States, other WNBA players said.
For many years, WNBA players have spent the offseason playing in international leagues, where they can make more money.
“We’ve been talking about the wage disparity for a long time, and players have gone overseas for a long time,” Washington Mystics player and National Women’s Basketball Association secretary Elizabeth Williams told CNN on Monday .
“I think that’s when people realize … the dangers and dangers of people going overseas and the impact of what these pay equity issues are.”
Griner was arrested on drug charges at a Russian airport in February and sentenced to nine years in prison. As concerns grew that Griner was being used as a political pawn, efforts to negotiate her release took months.
Now back on American soil, it is unclear how long Griner will remain in Texas for a medical evaluation.
“I understand it’s going to be a few more days before she comes out,” former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson told CNN on Sunday.
Richardson and his center work privately on behalf of families of hostages and detainees. He previously traveled to Russia to talk about Griner’s release, as well as Paul Whelan, a former US Marine who was wrongfully detained and remains in custody.
Richardson said it’s important to give former inmates like Griner enough time to settle down.
“We have to give them some space, some time to readjust because they’ve had a horrible experience in these Russian prisons,” said Richardson, who served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the Clinton administration.
While held in a Russian penal colony, Griner was unable to perform the work that many inmates do because of her size, Griner’s Russian lawyer, Maria Blagovolina, told ESPN and confirmed to CNN.
Most women in the penal colony worked sewing uniforms, but the 6-foot-9 Griner was too tall to sit at a work table and her hands were too large to handle the sewing. So instead, she wore cloth all day, her lawyer said.
On the day of his release, Griner felt like he was coming home, said Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens, who led the prisoner exchange mission in the United Arab Emirates.
But it didn’t feel real until he got on the plane and told her, “On behalf of the President of the United States, Joe Biden, and Secretary of State Tony Blinken, I’m here to take you home.” Carstens recalled. CNN.
He described Griner as an intelligent, compassionate, humble and patriotic person who immediately wanted to thank all the crew members who helped her.
“When she finally got on the American plane, I said, ‘Brittney, you must have been through a lot in the last 10 months. Here is your seat. Please feel free to unzip. We’ll give you your space,’” Carstens recalled.
“And she said, ‘Oh, no. I have been in prison for 10 months listening to Russian, I want to speak. But first of all, who are these guys? And he walked in front of me and went to every member of that crew, looked them in the eye, shook their hands and asked about them and got their names, making a personal connection with them. It was really amazing,” Carstens said.
Griner spent 12 hours of an 18-hour flight talking to Carstens “about everything under the sun,” he said.
Griner’s life has been altered forever and adjusting to everyday life could be difficult.
“Now she’s reintegrating into a world that’s changed for her. From a pure safety standpoint, she’s not going to be able to move in the world the way she did,” Griner’s agent told ESPN.
“It’s not a fate he asked for, but I think he’ll try to use his fame for good.”
Jorge Toledo, one of the “Citgo 6,” was released in October as part of a prisoner swap after he was detained during a 2017 business trip to Venezuela with other Citgo Corporation oil and gas executives.
After returning home, Toledo told CNN, he has had trouble sleeping and felt anxious during routine tasks, such as driving.
But Toledo said he was part of a program in San Antonio that involved six days with a group of psychologists. He said the program was “extremely important” to his reintegration and hopes Griner can tap into similar resources.
While many are celebrating Griner’s return, the fate of another American detained in Russia remains uncertain.
Whelan, a US, Irish, British and Canadian citizen, is being held 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.
With Griner back in the United States, Richardson said he is optimistic about Whelan’s release, noting that Russia had previously offered a trade for Whelan.
The United States tried to persuade Russia to trade Griner and Whelan for Bout, but Russian officials would not budge on the matter. Russia said the Americans’ cases were handled differently based on the charges each of them faced.
“This was not a choice about which American to bring home,” Biden said last week. “Unfortunately, for completely illegitimate reasons, Russia is treating Paul’s case differently than Brittney’s. And while we still haven’t secured Paul’s release, we’re not giving up. We never will.”
Whelan said he was glad Griner was released, but told CNN, “I’m very disappointed that more wasn’t done to secure my release, especially as we approach the four-year anniversary of my arrest.”