Richard Vaughan Wales’s Richard Vaughan is back as GB No1 on the World rankings.

Vaughan GB No1 for the Sydney and Athens Olympics was out for a long period post Athens 2004 with a chronic fatigue type virus. Currently despite being GB No1 and hoping for Olympic selection Vaughan is neither funded by the UK World Class Programme or the Sports Council for Wales.

Vaughan said “It’s great to be back as GB No1, however it the main aim is to be GB No1 next May not now to ensure Olympic qualification. Its especially good to archive this when I have been unable to play as many tournaments as I would have liked to the past month due to funding situation, currently I am paying every expense tournament and training. Hopefully I can achieve equal or better results in the next 6 months, especially with the European Championships in April”

Vaughan said “With the period I was not competing I totally lost my World ranking and has to start again, playing qualification and smaller events. Unfortunately this period coincided with a change in the funding system which meant I have been unable to fully meant the tough criteria. There does however seem to be a great disparity between the home countries funding with numerous English players of similar ages to myself receiving very good funding through England, yet in Wales there is no funding”.

Next up is the French Super series followed by the Scottish Challenger.