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By HELENE ELLIOTT

Sept. 14, 2000 12 AM PT

Jennifer Gutierrez, a former record-setting swimmer at Pepperdine, is enjoying her newfound celebrity as the top-ranked female U.S. triathlete in a new Olympic sport--one that will also be the first medal event of these Games.

The women will compete Saturday, a day before the men.

“It’s kind of nice. We’re definitely getting a lot of great press, and we want to promote the sport and make it as big as we can here,” said Gutierrez, who ranks 13th in the world.

Competitors will swim 1,500 meters (about a mile) in the open waters of the harbor, cycle 40 kilometers or 24.8 miles (six laps around a course in front of Sydney’s Opera House), and run 10,000 meters or 6.2 miles (two laps of a course near the Opera House and Royal Botanical Gardens).

Australians Michellie Jones and Loretta Harrop will be the favorites among the women.

Olympics

Helene Elliott

Helene Elliott was with the Los Angeles Times’ Sports department from 1989 to 2024, first as a staff writer and then, starting in 2006, as a columnist. She became the first female journalist to be honored with a plaque in the Hall of Fame of a major professional sport as the 2005 winner of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Elmer Ferguson Award, awarded to writers “who have brought honor to journalism and to hockey.” A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, she has covered 18 Olympics.

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