Legendary, Rita Gardiner gets Lifetime Membership & Lifetime Achievement Award in Sports

By Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer

#TurksandCaicos, December 14, 2022 – The Turks and Caicos’  sports administrative great, Rita Gardiner, OBE has been awarded for her service to the country once again.  Mrs. Gardiner, also a TCI Sports Hall of Fame inductee was resplendent in a cranberry red ensemble, collecting two illustrious prizes as a member of the Commonwealth Games community.

Gardiner was presented the Commonwealth Games Lifetime Achievement Award at the 8th Annual Gala Awards in Grand Turk at the Governor’s House on Friday December 10th.

The award was handed to Gardiner for her lifelong commitment to the Turks and Caicos’ Commonwealth Games Association (CGA) by Godfrey Been, President of the CGA, and Rosalie Ingham-Hall, Secretary General.

Also in attendance was Brian Lewis, Immediate Past President of the Caribbean Association of National Olympic Committees (CANOC), who flew in for the event from Trinidad and Tobago, also to honor Gardiner.

In recent months, Rita Gardiner was hailed for her contribution to the TCI and the Region by Caribbean Association of Olympic Committees CANOC; Gardiner herself a founding member.

Gardiner has been a consistent and ardent contributor to the development of youth, women and sports in the Turks and Caicos Islands.  She is also the country’s new Complaints Commissioner.

Rita Gardiner, was in 2016 under former governor, Peter Beckingham, named to the Queen’s Honour List and prized with the Order of the British Empire, OBE.