Her family confirmed Ms Gardiner died ‘following a long and courageous battle with cancer’
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Race Across The World star Jo Gardiner has died at 61, twelve months after her son and co-contestant Sam died in a car crash.
The pair competed together in the second series of the BBC travel challenge in 2020, travelling through South America.
Her family confirmed Ms Gardiner died "following a long and courageous battle with cancer". They remembered the Manchester physiotherapist as "an intrepid adventurer, brave, kind, witty and endlessly loving".
The statement continued: “She had a rare gift for making everyone around her feel more alive. She lived fully, fiercely and never did anything by halves.
“She was blessed with countless friends, drawn to her extraordinary magnetism. Somehow, each one felt as though they were among her very best.
“To us, she was more than all of these things. She was our family, our joy, our safe place and our absolute treasure.
“We know how deeply Jo was loved, and we take comfort in knowing that her laughter, her courage, her kindness and her wonderfully outrageous spirit will live on in the many people whose lives she touched.
“As we grieve, we ask for privacy, but we also ask everyone who knew and loved Jo to do exactly what she would have wanted: tell the funny stories, raise a glass, have an adventure, laugh loudly and live life to the full.
“She was one of a kind. There will never be another her.”
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Ms Gardiner is survived by her son Charlie.
Her other son Sam, with whom she appeared in the TV show, died in June 2025 at the age of 24, after his white Volkswagen Golf R estate came off the road and rolled before landing on its side.
The landscape gardener had been working on an isolated estate on the west coast of Scotland and was home in Manchester for a family gathering.
