| Phillip Gardiner | |
| Headercolor: | skyblue |
| Nationality: | Australian |
| Birth Date: | 1952 |
| Country: | Australia |
| Sport: | Rowing |
| Club: | Glebe Rowing Club Melb University Boat Club |
| Nationals: | Penrith Cup 1979-1992 |
Phillip Gardiner (born 1952) is an Australian former representative lightweight rower. He was an eight-time Australian national champion and won two bronze medals at World Rowing Championships. He made ten appearances for Australia at World Rowing Championships over the seventeen-year period from 1977 to 1994.
Gardiner was raised in Sydney and took up rowing as a coxswain in 1961 at the Glebe Rowing Club.[1] He coxed a Glebe men's junior four at the 1970 Australian Rowing Championships.[2]
Gardiner relocated to Melbourne and joined the Melbourne University Boat Club in 1977 in an effort to make the Australian lightweight eight. In Melbourne Uni colours he contested and won the national lightweight eight title twice at the Australian Rowing Championships in 1981 and 1985.
In 1979 he first made state selection for Victoria in the men's lightweight four which contested and won the Penrith Cup at the Interstate Regatta within the Australian Rowing Championships.[3] He raced in further Penrith Cup fours for Victoria in 1980, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1990 and 1992 always in the bow seat. He saw victories in those crews in 1979, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1988 and 1990.
Gardiner made his Australian representative debut at the 1977 World Rowing Championships in Amsterdam in the Australian lightweight eight which won a bronze medal. The following year at the 1978 World Rowing Championships in Copenhagen he was again in the lightweight eight for another bronze.[4]
He made the Australian men's lightweight eight on four further occasions and raced in that boat at Bled 1979, Montreal 1984, Hazewinkel 1985 and Lake Barrington 1990. He contested the 1981 World Rowing Championships in a lightweight double scull, the 1992 World Rowing Championships in Australia's lightweight four and the 1994 World Rowing Championships in a lightweight pair.