May 8, 2024

The U.S. girls’s basketball crew introduced that its coaching camp roster for the 2024 Summer time Olympics in Paris consists of the three-time gold medalist Brittney Griner and her legendary teammate Diana Taurasi. Group USA is predicted to start coaching in Atlanta this coming week. 

Griner spent 10 months imprisoned in Russia after being arrested at a Moscow airport with lower than a gram of hashish oil in her suitcase and had been taking part in in Russia through the offseason for seven years. Her February 2022 arrest occurred a number of days earlier than Russia invaded Ukraine.

Following her launch on December 8, 2022, in alternate for Russian arms supplier and Putin ally Viktor Bout, Griner stated in her first public press convention, “I’m by no means going abroad to play once more except I’m representing my nation on the Olympics. If I make that crew, that may be the one motive I would depart U.S. soil.”

It Appears That Second Has Arrived

The six-time WNBA All-Star, who performs for the Phoenix Mercury, was named to a 16-player roster for coaching camp and exhibitions anticipated to start this coming week. The roster consists of some, however not all, of probably the most outstanding 2024 Olympic hopefuls. The 12-woman crew for Paris is predicted to be chosen this coming spring. 

Griner’s Olympic Historical past

Griner led Group USA to victory on the Rio Olympics in 2016. In 2020, she was named to the nationwide crew for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, the place she scored 30 factors, the second-highest whole in an Olympic sport in U.S. girls’s historical past. That yr, the Individuals beat Japan 90-75.

Even with out Griner and different veteran stars, the U.S. girls’s crew received the world championship final yr, thus qualifying for the 2024 Paris video games, the place it can compete for an eighth consecutive Olympic title.

In the meantime, Off The Courtroom 

Brittney Griner was honored final Friday with the WNBA Cares Group Help Award for her volunteer work.

The WNBA stated it was Griner’s “intensive work in championing the protected return of wrongful detainees abroad and serving to marginalized communities in Phoenix” that earned her the season-long recognition.

In line with the league, Griner’s efforts with the “Convey Our Households House” and the “BG Coronary heart & Sole Shoe Drive” are initiatives which have made important impression on the lives of others. 

Griner was additionally named one of many 100 Most Influential Individuals Of 2023 by Time journal in 2023.

Picture courtesy of the WNBA

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