Personal information | |
---|---|
Full name | Heather Brand |
National team | Zimbabwe |
Born | Harare, Zimbabwe | 17 November 1982
Height | 1.73 m (5 ft 8 in) |
Weight | 60 kg (132 lb) |
Sport | |
Sport | Swimming |
Strokes | Freestyle, butterfly |
Club | King Aquatic Club (U.S.) |
College team | Louisiana State University (U.S.) [1] |
Coach | Sean Hutchison (U.S.) [1] |
Medal record |
Heather Brand (born 17 November 1982) is a Zimbabwean swimmer, who specialised in freestyle and butterfly events. [2] Brand had claimed a total of five medals (three silver and two bronze) at the 2007 All-Africa Games in Algiers, Algeria, and eventually represented her nation Zimbabwe in the 100 m butterfly at the 2008 Summer Olympics. [3] [4] Apart from her medal treasury, Brand also established five long and short-course national records in all butterfly events at a major international competition, spanning three editions of the World Championships. [5] [6]
Brand competed for Zimbabwe in the women's 100 m butterfly at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. She scored a solid Zimbabwean record of 1:00.61 to capture the 100 m butterfly crown and slide under the FINA B-cut (1:01.43) by nearly a full second at the All-Africa Games one year earlier. [4] [7] Swimming on the outside in heat three, Brand wound up last in a disappointing 1:01.39 to round out the eight-female pack, over two seconds behind the leader Birgit Koschischek of Austria. Brand failed to advance to the semifinals, as she placed forty-second overall out of 49 swimmers in the prelims. [8]
Brand is the former captain of the LSU swimming team and a graduate of wildlife management at the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. [9] She is also a resident athlete of King Aquatic Club in Federal Way, Washington, where she trained with numerous world-class swimmers, including Margaret Hoelzer and Megan Jendrick of the United States (both of whom were Olympic medalists), and Svetlana Karpeeva, an individual medley specialist from Russia. [10] [1]
Kirsty Leigh Coventry Seward is a Zimbabwean swimmer and politician currently serving as the Minister of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation in the Cabinet of Zimbabwe since September 2018. A former Olympic swimmer and world record holder, she is the most decorated Olympian from Africa. She is a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and was elected the Chairperson of the IOC Athletes' Commission, the body that represents all Olympic athletes worldwide in early 2018.
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The women's 100 metre butterfly event at the 2008 Olympic Games took place on 9–11 August at the Beijing National Aquatics Center in Beijing, China.
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