Local Olympian Cristina Teuscher is, in many ways, returning to her roots.
The six-time national swim champion, a native of nearby New Rochelle, has established a new swim academy in Greenwich with her husband, former Yale administrator Amerigo Fabbri. The goal of the new Sweet Blue Swim Academy, says Teuscher, is to share her knowledge and love of swimming in a relaxed approach that advances self-confidence, resilience and self-knowledge.
And, oh yeah, it’s great exercise too.
Besides establishing new roots in her home region, the academy marks a return to the water for Teuscher, a former Yale women’s swim coach who also has an MBA from INSEAD and has worked in the finance and non-profit sectors and as an executive coach.
Teuscher represented the U.S. in the 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games, winning a gold medal in Atlanta and a bronze in Sydney. In four years at Columbia University, she never lost an individual collegiate race, and earned four NCAA titles. Fabbri, meanwhile, was at Yale for nearly two decades, spending his last 11 years there as Dean of Pierson College, overseeing 500 undergraduates.
“I’ve always done swim lessons here and there, through word-of-mouth, and I think this was always in the works,” Teuscher says of her new venture. “But it took the balance supplied by my husband to know that we’d really have something awesome to offer our community.”
Fabbri “really brings the playful creative side to our approach,” Teuscher adds, noting that “our daughter actually prefers swimming with her dad.”
Sweet Blue began operations this fall, using the warm-water pool at Greenwich’s Boys and Girls Club at 4 Horseneck Lane, offering group learn-to-swim for ages 6 months up to adults and stroke-development classes. “Our clients have told me they appreciate the strong emphasis on comfort and technique in the water,” Teuscher says.
Once the academy opens its own facility in the near future, it plans to add aquatic rehabilitation programming. In all its efforts, the founders say, the aim will be to make the aquatic environment accessible and inviting to people of all skill levels and ages, especially children.
More information is available at sweetblueswim.com, by emailing [email protected], or calling 475-359-3528.
