The 32-year-old basketball player Janis Timma has been found dead on a street in Moscow, as reported by the TASS agency. Russian authorities are investigating the cause of death, with suicide being one of the hypotheses.
Timma, who was 2.03 meters tall, played as a shooting guard. He represented Latvia internationally, his home country where he started playing basketball and won several titles. He arrived in Spain in 2017 to play three seasons for Baskonia, but only stayed for one season. He returned to Spain last season, signing with Monbus Obradoiro.
He also played for other clubs such as Zenit Saint Petersburg, Olympiacos, Khimki, UNICS Kazan, Caciques de Huracao, and Darüssafaka. In recent months, he had moved to Russia to participate in a 3x3 basketball tournament, which theoretically would prevent him from playing for Latvia again.
Janis Timma had been married to Ukrainian singer and actress Anna Sedokova since 2020. After a relationship she had described as "complicated," they divorced earlier this month, and he had publicly expressed his pain over the situation. Although suicide is usually not caused by a single factor, those feelings - and the request to notify his ex-partner - suggest the breakup as a trigger for the player's tragic end.
Kristaps Porzingis, a teammate of the late Timma in the Latvian national team, expressed his condolences with this message: "Human connection is the cornerstone of our mental health, please take care of each other."