Sharina Gutierrez Talks Full-Circle Moment of Being an SI Swimsuit Rookie

The 2023 Swim Search co-winner’s journey to the fold started with a casting call 10 years ago.

Sharina Gutierrez was photographed by Ben Watts in Portugal. / Ben Watts/Sports Illustrated

After co-winning the 2023 Swim Search, Sharina Gutierrez earned her status as a rookie in this year’s 60th anniversary issue. Her journey to the fold was 10 years in the making, as the 33-year-old mom of three first met the team during a casting a decade ago—making her feature in this year’s magazine that much sweeter.

We caught up with Gutierrez during our issue launch events in Florida in May, where she notes that living out her dream has been a complete “emotional rollercoaster.” Gutierrez says she cried upon seeing the images photographer Ben Watts captured of her in Portugal for her rookie SI Swimsuit feature.

Sharina Gutierrez was photographed by Ben Watts in Portugal. / Ben Watts/Sports Illustrated

“[The experience] has been surreal, like a very big pinch me moment. The last time I was here doing this, I wasn’t a rookie yet, I was still in the top seven [Swim Search finalists],” Gutierrez tells us of being in the Sunshine State for launch week. “So it’s definitely, I feel like a full-circle moment coming here and being here and like actually really growing with SI [Swimsuit] for the past now going on a year and a half. It just feels like home. I feel like I’m at home with my sisters and I’m having a damn good time.”

As she noted in her on-set interview in Europe, Gutierrez’s journey to the SI Swimsuit Issue required some self-discovery that ultimately led her to her dreams at just the right time.

“The story that I went through to get to where I am today, I feel like I had to go through those 10 years of growth, those 10 years of self-sabotage and feeling unworthy to really losing myself in all of that so that I could actually find myself,” she said at the time. “When I found myself, it’s like I never wanted to let that person go.”