Richard Vaughan will be representing Bath University who will be strong favorites for the men’s title at this year’s BUSA championships in Sheffield on March 15th and 16th. Bath face Bristol in the semi final.

Vaughan said “ It great to be representing Team Bath, it’s a busy Olympic period but its great to help the University hopefully win another BUSA title”.

Vaughan players in the Swiss Super Series Tuesday next week.

The RVBA’s Rachel Thomas is also playing for Loughborough University in the Ladies Team. Loughborough are playing Birmingham University and in the other semi final Bath are playing Cambridge. Rachel is to be next year’s Loughborough University 1st Team Ladies Captain. A great achievement as she only started at the University in October 2007.

RVBA Win Badminton Wales Club Champs

The Richard Vaughan Badminton Academy supported by Memory Lane Cakes Won the Welsh Top Clubs competition this weekend at Brecon Leisure Centre.

The event now re-established by events co-ordinator James Phillips of the Welsh Badminton Union brings together all the top clubs in Wales who fight it out over 9 matches. 1 Men’s singles, 1 Ladies singles, 2 men’s doubles, 2 ladies doubles, and 3 mixed doubles. The winners of the event gain entry to the European club championships which are this year in Russia.

The RVBA beat Monmouth Badminton club 8-1 in the semi final, and then over came Glamorgan Rackets club in the final 5-4.

Head coach Richard Vaughan said “It was great the team were able to win with so many youngsters playing, I hope it will be of great benefit to them in the future”.

Richard was unable to be at the event due to a training camp in Germany prior to the Polish Open next Wednesday. In his absence the team was managed by another coach Simon Rowe.

RVBA - Singapore

The Richard Vaughan Badminton Academy (RVBA) held a training camp in Singapore last week thanks to a successful co-operation with the Singapore Sports School.

The Singapore sports school is the venue for the 2010 Youth Olympics, and the location of the Singapore National Team.

On Friday May 2nd Richard Vaughan and Piret Hamer were married in the Medieval town hall of beautiful Tallinn. This was followed my a reception and party at the city's Old Guild Hall with 70 friends and family.

Badminton Europe Coaches

Badminton Europe is supporting a training camp for under 19 players which is currently taking place in Presov, Slovakia. Players and coaches from Austria, Cyprus, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia are training together under the leadership of Richard Vaughan (Wales) and Marina Andrievskaya (Russia). The players are spending five days together in training before competing in a team tournament at the weekend.

More than forty players and national coaches from the five participating countries are training together in Presov, Slovakia at a Regional Project activity financially supported by Badminton Europe.

The five nations have sent their best under 19 players and after a weeks training together they will compete in a team tournament. Teams from Czech Republic, Hungary and Lithuania have also entered the tournament taking place this Saturday and Sunday.
Richard Vaughan (Wales) and Marina Andrievskaya (Russia) have been appointed by Badminton Europe to lead this activity and are able to share their knowledge and experience of being top international players with the aspiring junior players.
The players have been working on defence and attack, speed work, tactical work and consistency, both in singles and doubles play. It is hoped that by training together in this environment it will help these nations in their preparation for next years European Junior Championships taking place in Milan, Italy in April 2009.


Badminton Europe would like to congratulate the Slovak Badminton Federation for their hard work and effort in preparing the training camp and team tournament.
For more information on Badminton Europe funded Regional Projects – click here

Richard Vaughan from Wales won the British University Championships Sunday in Nottingham last weekend.

This year’s BUCS championships was the strongest event yet with an influx of foreign talent which saw a 128 draw in all disciplines.

The latter stages of the tournament saw Vaughan beat Ball from Bristol University 21-13 21-4 in the Last 16.

In the quarter final Vaughan beat Richard Wrigley from Birmingham University, 21-13, 21-6.

The semi final saw a tough opponent in Harry Wright, who recently reached the final of the Wimbledon Elite.
Vaughan edged out a close first set 21-15, in the 2nd set Vaughan opened up a sizeable lead before Wright fought back and took a close second set 19-21.

In the third game Vaughan rushed off to a 9-1 lead and held on for a 21-9 victory.

His opponent in the final was Malaysian Ken Lim from Leeds Carnegie University, the recent winner of the Wimbledon Elite.

The final saw a close start before Vaughan opened a 17-9 lead in the opening set, Lim began to fight back to 17-15, only to lose 21-17.

In the second set Vaughan shot off to a 9-0 lead, which Lim could not recover from, Vaughan winning the second set, and the title for Team Bath 21-9.

The BUCS event was well supported by Welsh players, Rachel Thomas in the Loughborough team, and a strong University of Glamorgan presence.

As usual the best supported Welsh team was Swansea University!

Day three of the Welsh International event saw only the mixed doubles with RVBA (Supported by Memory Lane Cakes) interest. In the quarter final RVBA Coach Richard Vaughan and sixteen year old Sarah Thomas were up against Armstrong and Grant from England, after a great win yesterday over top GB pair Angathangelou and George.
The Welsh pair took a 11-9 lead in the first set only for the English pair to edge in front and take the set 21-18. The second set saw the Welsh pair once again take a 11-10 lead before being edged out of it 21-17.
RVBA Coach Vaughan said “It was a disappointing result today after the win we had yesterday. Armstrong and Grant played technically very well and did not allow us to play to our strengths. At the end of the day though it was a great experience for Sarah to have a win like yesterday and play under the pressure of a quarter final, she can only gain from it.”
Next up is the Irish International event next week in Dublin.

Badminton player Richard Vaughan and judo player Michelle Holt are the latest TeamBath Athletes of the Month –an award supported by the Fat Face store in Bath.

University of Bath student Richard Vaughan (right) collects his award for winning the men’s singles title at the British Universities and Colleges Sport badminton individual championships in Nottingham. Richard is currently studying for a masters in coaching.

TeamBath judo player Michelle Holt collects the women’s TeamBath athlete of the month award for outstanding performances at the British trials. Michelle dominated the under-70kg class at the trials in Sheffield, winning all five of her contests with bout-winning Ippons to secure a place on the GB senior squad for 2009.

Ged Roddy, Director of Sport at the University of Bath, said: “I’d like to congratulate Richard on Michelle on being named our latest TeamBath Athletes of the Month and also thank the Fat Face store in Bath for their continued support for the award.”

The University of Bath has one of the leading university sports departments in the UK. Under its TeamBath brand, its success is based on the expertise and dedication of staff, and its excellent facilities, used by the community and Olympic medal winners alike.

RVBA supported by Memory Lane Cakes

Day 2 of the Greek Badminotn Open kicked off today with the quarter final of the mixed doubles, where the RVBA’s Vaughan and Thomas beat Cypriots Ioannou and Charalambous 21-14 21-15.

In the ladies doubles quarter final the Thomas sisters were up against Bulgarians Stoynova, and Tsvetanova, after a very closely fought match the Bulgarians edged it 12-21, 21-13, 19-21.

The semi final of the mixed doubles saw Vaughan and Thomas up against Denmarks Mork and Helsbol, with the Welsh pair going down 14-21, 16-21 to the well organised Danish pair.

RVBA Head coach Vaughan commented “It was a dissapoitning day as all the games were close and we just lost some points at crucial parts of the set which cost the matches. The Bulgarians are always tough opposition and once the girls can beat a pair like that it marks a real break through. In mixed we have beaten better pairs this year so that was a little disappointing. Hopefully the girls will learn from it and improve on it for next time. Sarah has just come off a heavy GCSE exam period in school, so considering that as it was a positive few days.”