Brittney Griner, an American professional basketball player for the Women’s National Basketball League (WNBA) and two-time Olympic gold medalist, landed in San Antonio after being released from Russian captivity through a prisoner swap for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

The WNBA star was detained on Feb. 17 and held for months after Russian authorities accused her of carrying less than a gram of cannabis oil in a vape cartridge inside her luggage at an airport near Moscow. She was sentenced to 9 years in a penal colony. At one point, she was forced to chop off her signature dreads after they froze after showers in the brutal Russian winter cold.

After landing, she was brought to Brooke Army Medical Center to undergo an evaluation and reunite with her wife, Cherelle Griner. U.S. officials said she would receive counseling and specialized medical service. She has been recovering by spending time with family at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, where she got to drink her favorite soda, Dr. Pepper, eating a barbeque feast prepared by her father, and recieving a haircut for her “Russian fade” as her family and friends jokingly called it.

Most notably, Griner could finally play basketball again. At the Texas military base, her first shot was a dunk. Her agent, Lindsay Kagawa Colas, told CNN “I think it’s fair to say that her picking up a ball voluntarily and the first thing being a dunk … it was really encouraging.”

“Griner has been eating far more nutritious food and supplements compared with her time in detention,” Colas said. “Her energy level was really high,” she added.

She is in good physical shape, but whether she returns to the WNBA in the spring will be up to her, according to Colas.

Viktor Bout, also known as the Merchant of Death, had been serving a 25-year prison sentence for conspiring to sell weapons to people who said they planned to kill Americans. His story even inspired the Hollywood film “Lord of War”.

Biden received criticism for failing to win freedom for another American, the former Marine Paul Whelan, who was arrested almost four years ago in Russia for spying. Whelan told CNN that he is “disappointed” that more has not been done to secure his release. 

“I was arrested for a crime that never occurred,” he said in a phone call from the penal colony where he is being held in Russia. “I don’t understand why I’m still sitting here.”

US officials said the Russians refused to negotiate Whelan’s release, but Biden vowed the US would “never give up” on him. In response, Whelan said he was surprised that he had been left behind.

“This was not a situation where we had a choice of which American to bring home. It was a choice between bringing home one particular American – Brittney Griner – or bringing home none,” a US senior administration official said Thursday morning.

In a press conference, Biden said he spoke on the phone with Griner and claimed that she was safe, but deserves privacy and rest.