[4] 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.

During the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, she won the silver medal in the team with Claudia Bokel and Imke Duplitzer.

In 2007, she became world champion in singles in Saint Petersburg and at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, she won the gold medal in the individual competitions.

Heidemann progressed to the finals of the individual competition of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London (barely beating South Korea's Shin A-lam due to a controversial clock malfunction) and eventually lost to Ukraine's Yana Shemyakina.

Britta Heidemann donates time to the Bundesliga Foundation, a charity that sponsors health and integration projects.