The Sporty Showbiz Girl

Chesca is a bemedalled athlete who's won medals for swimming and gymnastics.

When she was younger, she was on her school's varsity swimming team and also used to compete for the Alabang Gators, the swimming team of the Alabang Country Club.

Back then, a typical day for Chesca consisted of waking up at 4AM, running around the polo field at the Alabang Country Club to warm up and swimming several laps—after which she'd take a quick shower, then go off to school to attend her classes. At 3PM, after school was out, she'd rush back to the pool to train, and her tutor would wait for her there to make sure that she kept up with her schoolwork.

But Chesca's biggest achievement was winning first place in the overall gymnastics event at the PRISAA (Private Schools Athletic Association) when she was eight or nine years old.

The overall event is the gymnastics equivalent of a triathlon, pentathlon or decathlon in athletics, in which gymnasts compete in different events. In gymnastics, there are four: the uneven parallel bars, the floor exercise, the vault and the balance beam. "I competed against representatives of about 50 private schools from all over the country," shares Chesca, who we caught up with while she was taping her spiels for Us Girls.

According to Chesca, their parents insisted that all the Garcia siblings get into sports. Patrick was into gymnastics and tennis. Their other brother, Pichon, was into martial arts, specifically, jujitsu.

"We were all very athletic," says Chesca. "Our parents believed that it was important that we get into sports, because it would make us more focused.

The funny thing is that Chesca is currently dating an athlete, Doug Kramer, who is playing his last year of college ball for the Ateneo de Manila University Blue Eagles. At first, Chesca says, she wasn't interested in Doug.

Not only was she three years older than he was, she had heard so many stories about basketball players that she didn't want to date one.