An outstanding student, Cristina, graduated tenth in her class of 493 at New Rochelle, and received the Leonard Talner Award for bringing the most honor to her school.

Teuscher moved to the Badger Swim Club around age ten and Head Coach John Collins Jr. took over her training in earnest when she was 13.

[3][5] Her teammates for the gold medal-winning 4×200-meter freestyle relay at the July, 1996 Atlanta Olympics were Jenny Thompson, Trina Jackson and Sheila Taormina who completed the team event with a combined time of 7:59.87.

Teuscher's performance was noteworthy as she swam the fastest leg of the relay with a time of 1:58.86, helping the team edge ahead of the competition.

[9] Four years later, while captain of the U.S. women's team, at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney in the 200-meter individual medley finals, Teuscher placed third capturing the bronze medal in a time of 2:13.32, around 0.85 seconds behind the silver medalist Beatrice Caslaru of Roumania.

The event favorite and gold medal winner, Ukrainian Yana Klochkova, led throughout the race, but had to hold on to a two-second lead in the last 100 meters.

The Olympic field was narrowed when China's Wu Yanyan, who had set the event record in May 2000, was eliminated after testing positive for anabolic steroids.

In winning the 200-meter freestyle at the 1995 Pan American Games in Mar del Plata, she swam faster times than former Olympic gold medal freestylists Janet Evans and Jenny Thompson, which immediately drew considerable attention from the global swimming community.

After 2004, she spent some time travelling giving swim tours at European lakes, and helping to care for her grandmother in Argentina.

She was later voted the 2000 Honda-Broderick Cup as the best collegiate women's athlete in America, then the only Ivy League student to ever receive the honor and only the fourth swimmer.

At Columbia, she won all four NCAA championship events in which she competed, and was named the Outstanding Ivy League Swimmer in all four years of college eligibility.