On the Medal stand, Brittney Griner is a three-time Olympic gold medalist, but that’s not what brought tears to her…See more

PARIS — “The Star-Spangled Banner” was climbing to its conclusion, and Brittney Griner couldn’t stop the tears. Because her right hand was over her heart and she held a Paris Olympics poster in a cardboard box in her left, Griner had no way to wipe her reddened, wet eyes. She swallowed hard, as if to calm and reset herself. And try as she might, blinking them away didn’t work, either.

An instrumental version of the national anthem played following the U.S. women’s basketball team’s gold medal win Sunday, and Griner cried. Her tears framed her round cheeks and streamed down her face. She was the only one on the medal stand so moved. Then again, she might have been the only woman on the podium who had to play through PTSD at these Olympics. And she probably was the only person in the arena who had served time in a Russian penal colony.

The anthem stirred up memories. Those flashes from the past could have been from two years ago, when she was forced to strip naked for the lewd entertainment of Russian soldiers, or maybe all the way back to a middle school bathroom, where the girl viewed as different was treated as if she did not belong. But the anthem played, and Griner listened and cried because the notes now mean so much. It was her song.

Later, as her teammates stopped to speak with members of the media, glowing after their 67-66 victory over France clinched the program’s eighth straight Olympic gold medal, Griner was asked why she reacted that way during the anthem. She tried to explain her emotions, but she did not need to find the right words. Her tears said everything.

She can represent her nation on the world’s stage. She can play for the most dominant basketball program in history. And when the U.S. women win as expected, she can celebrate by kissing her wife. She is free to be herself.

Her tears said the United States is her country, too.

The Stars and Stripes, an emblem misused by white supremacists as their flag and their flag alone, can be draped over her shoulders, too.

“The Star-Spangled Banner,” a song penned by an attorney who owned Black people as property, can be Griner’s lyrics, too.

Griner can now be proud of a country that hasn’t always loved people like her back. When anyone from a marginalized group feels accepted, that they’re worth being loved and protected and fought for, that’s when the tears flow.