Winner
FengYu Yang chose an article headlined “Brittney Griner Is Sentenced to 9 Years in a Russian Penal Colony” and wrote:
I remember my fifth-grade English teacher, Ms. Dean, wrote the definition of irony on the whiteboard in black. However, apart from the marker’s scent, only one sentence stuck with me till today: “It is when you find something funny, in a sad way.”
It is also like when one of the best female basketball players remains unknown for the past 31 years of her life. Despite winning two Olympic gold medals for the USA, two World Cup gold medals, and breaking the blocking record during her first year in the WNBA, she still had to enter a foreign country during the off-season because she can only earn a fifth of the minimum salary an NBA rookie can make.
Maybe it is when she’s being heard of for the first time due to committing an accidental crime in a controversial country. Maybe it is when one sees her for the first time, but only in a video of her restrained while receiving a 9-year sentence. Maybe it’s when she sees clips of people valuing a jar of SPAM over a WNBA ticket. Maybe it’s when she sees how her case is applicable to female athletes all around the world.
Maybe now I can email Ms.Dean, proving to her I understood what irony is.