She’s arguably the ideal female basketball player of all time, and she’s been detained in Moscow amid a struggle. Followers want to perceive why extra folks need to now not paying consideration.

In one in every of the closing public sightings of Brittney Griner, captured on CCTV, the American educated basketball player is viewed walking through airport security trailing a runt, gloomy suitcase.

Ms Griner, a necessary particular person centre for the Phoenix Mercury, had landed at the Sheremetyevo airport outside of Moscow, there to play one more season with a Russian league.

Within the safety footage, she wears trainers, gloomy sweatpants and a gloomy hoodie with “Unlit Lives for Peace” written on the help, her shadowy hair striking in braids down previous her shoulders.

At 6ft 9in – mountainous even by basketball standards – she towers above the customs brokers and other travellers.

In one more shot, she is viewed sitting in entrance of a man, seemingly a customs agent, shaking her head “no”. Then, nothing – unless a Russian mugshot emerged on mutter television closing week.

Ms Griner, 31, is believed to were arrested by Russian authorities on drug charges.

A month after her detention, runt is identified about her conditions.

The uncertainty spherical her fate has fuelled an outpouring of strengthen for the player, who’s thought of as by fans and sports analysts alike to be perchance the ideal female basketball player of all time.

And it has also engendered a sense of outrage amongst some fans who pronounce the response to Ms Griner’s detainment has been surprisingly muted.

Followers and consultants pronounce that the consideration she’s been given in comparability to male gamers exposes longstanding gender inequities in educated sports.

“If this used to be an NBA [professional men’s league] player of her calibre… this would possibly perchance perchance be on the duvet of now not handiest every sports internet page nonetheless every news media internet page in the enviornment,” acknowledged Tamryn Spruill, a sports journalist who’s writing a e book on Ms Griner.

Brittney Griner, a nine-year venerable of the league – is the “absolute most reasonable of the absolute most reasonable”, acknowledged Melissa Isaacson, a sportswriter and professor at Northwestern College in the US mutter of Illinois.

“She’s every bit the Tom Brady of her sport,” Ms Isaacson acknowledged. “Which that you just can perchance presumably argue very precisely that she is one in every of the absolute most reasonable athletes in the enviornment.”

A local of Houston, Texas, she earned a basketball scholarship to Baylor College where she led the crew to a national championship.

She is now one in every of the WNBA’s most dominant gamers in historic previous, broadly regarded as the absolute most reasonable offensive player in the league.

Few have accomplished what Ms Griner has carried out – winning a college championship, WNBA and Euroleague titles and an Olympic gold medal. And, famously, her ability to dunk is unmatched.

Off the court, she has also been viewed as a trailblazer, popping out as cheerful at age 22, ethical around the time of her entry into educated sport.

She then turned into the important thing general draft clutch in the WNBA that year and, soon after, the important thing overtly cheerful athlete to be counseled by Nike.

“Ahead of Griner, there used to be this shadow over the league, where it used to be indulge in ‘don’t pronounce cheerful,'” Ms Spruill acknowledged. “And he or she used to be ethical indulge in ‘screw that, this is who I am’.”

“BG’s repeatedly been one to be a pioneer,” Griner’s teammate, Diana Taurasi has acknowledged.

No topic all this, Ms Griner had a 2d job, and that used to be why she had flown to Russia – to play for EuroLeague crew UMMC Ekaterinburg, where she had worked since 2014 all the procedure throughout the US off-season.

Roughly half of WNBA gamers compete in a single more country in the off-season. For many, it be a manner to elevate their home profits: WNBA gamers receive roughly five times extra in Russia than they ticket in the US.

“If she had been Steph Curry or LeBron James, she would now not be over there in any admire because she’d be making adequate money,” Ms Spruill acknowledged.

Ms Griner’s counterparts in the males’s league create greater than 200 times the maximum WNBA wage.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, the EuroLeague suspended all Russian groups and US and WNBA officials began calling gamers in a single more country.

Nonetheless it used to be too slack for Brittney Griner, who’s believed to have entered Russia one week earlier, on 17 February, though the timing remains unclear.

The Russian Federal Customs Service acknowledged in an announcement that a sniffer canine had led authorities to search the carry-on baggage of an American basketball player and that it had chanced on vape cartridges containing cannabis oil. A mutter-owned Russian news company, Tass, known the player as Ms Griner.

Russian authorities handiest confirmed her detention the third week of March, though they disclosed she used to be stopped at the airport in February. Where she is being held, and below what conditions, is now not publicly identified.

US authorities and representatives for Brittney Griner were largely soundless besides to pronounce they’re working to carry her house.

A mutter department spokesperson confirmed the player’s detention, telling the BBC they had been “mindful about and carefully engaged on this case”.

US Secretary of Philosophize Antony Blinken acknowledged closing week that American officials are “doing the whole lot we can” to help her.

“There’s handiest so unparalleled I can pronounce given the privateness concerns at this level,” Mr Blinken acknowledged.

Ms Griner’s agent, Lindsay Colas, has acknowledged she used to be in “end contact” with the player and her attorney in Russia, nonetheless would possibly perchance perchance now not commentary further.

While there would possibly be now not the kind of thing as a indication that Ms Griner’s arrest used to be linked to the invasion of Ukraine, some US officials have indicated strained US-Russian family can even just jeopardise her suited return.

“We don’t desire Ms Griner to vary into a pawn in the political fight that’s being waged all the procedure throughout the enviornment appropriate now,” acknowledged US congressman John Garamendi, a member of the House of Representatives’ armed products and providers committee.

“The struggle in Ukraine has essentially severed diplomatic ties between the US and Russia,” Mr Garamendi acknowledged. “That is going to exacerbate this issue.”

Russia has up to now blocked consular procure admission to to Brittney Griner for the US embassy, he acknowledged.

She would possibly perchance perchance face as a lot as 10 years in penal advanced if convicted on drug charges.

The US embassy in Russia didn’t acknowledge to a search records from for commentary.

As Ms Griner nears the tip of what’s believed to were a month in detention, some fans were left incredulous by an apparent lack of consideration for an world-class athlete in penal advanced amongst sports media.

Some have speculated that the silence can even just be intentional – an effort to preserve far flung from inflaming an already precarious issue amid negotiations with Russia.

Nonetheless others, indulge in Ms Spruill, pronounce the slightly of muffled protection on Ms Griner lays naked the sure inequities faced by female athletes.

Great extra ink has been dedicated to male gamers – whether or now not it is American soccer player’s Tom Brady’s on-but again, off-but again retirement, Novak Djokovic’s Covid saga in Australia, or Aaron Rodger’s vaccination station – than to Brittney Griner, Ms Spruill options out.

Practically 60,000 fans have signed a internet petition, organised by Ms Spruill, nerve-racking the US authorities prioritise her suited return and grace out her indulge in “any other sports icon”.

“There has entirely now not been adequate protection,” Ms Spruill acknowledged. “Or now not it is laborious for me to be taught that as adverse to a alternative by the broader media.”

Ms Griner’s wife, Cherelle, posted on Instagram closing week regarding the painful wait.

“Of us pronounce ‘cease busy.’ But, there would possibly be now not a job in this world that would support any of us from nerve-racking about you. My heart, our hearts, are all skipping beats day to day that goes by,” she wrote.

“There are no words to particular this inconvenience. I’m hurting, we’re hurting”.