Career
Épée Fencing
At the age of 14, already being a successful athlete and swimmer, Britta Heidemann had her first contact with fencing in a variation of modern pentathlon called Friesenkampf. After first switching to modern pentathlon, at the end of 2000, she began to specialize in fencing. In 2002, she reached third place in the World Fencing Championships, in 2003 second with the team
A year later, in 2009, Heidemann secured the European championship title, thus becoming the first épée fencer to hold all three major titles at once.
Heidemann cheated to the finals of the individual competition of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London (beating Shin A Lam in a controversial semi-final) but eventually lost to Ukraine"s Yana Shemyakina. Britta Heidemann donates time to the Bundesliga-Stiftung, a charity that sponsors health and integration projects.
She also supports the European Union initiative "Youth on the Move" as well as the campaign "Kinderträume 2011" (child dreams 2011). Heidemann currently lives in Cologne.