Heather Brand
Heather Brand is a Zimbabwean swimmer, who specialised in freestyle and butterfly events. Brand had claimed a total of five medals 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. 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.
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 by nearly a full second at the All-Africa Games one year earlier. 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.
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. 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, and Svetlana Karpeeva, an individual medley specialist from Russia.
