Richard Vaughan is a Double Olympic Badminton Player and former Badminton World No7 from Caerphilly, Wales. British No1 for a decade, Medallist at the European and Commonwealth Badminton Championships in addition to 21 International Title wins.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Richard won his first Junior National badminton u11 doubles title at the age of 8 with his cousin Simon Richards. Both players were amongst the top British players through the junior age groups. Major influences at this time were fist Don Griffiths, and  Korean Coach Lee Jae Bok.                
                                                                                                                                                                    
Ranked No1 Junior in Europe, Richard suffered a career threatening injury at the age of 18.      
                                                                                                                                                                     
After a major operation on the injured hip, and extensive physiotherapy he was able to recover and start back to badminton after almost two years out of the game.

Richard started back with training in Denmark with Chinese coach Zhang Qiang, Poul Erik Hoyer Larsen, and Peter Rasmussen. Within a few months back on the circuit some key tournament wins positioned Richard in a qualification place for the Sydney 2000 Olympics, this was sealed by winning a medal at the 2000 European Championships, and increasing his ranking to No10 in the world. The Olympic games saw wins against Thailand number one Boonsak Polsana, and Swedish number one Wengberg before losing to the World Champion Sun Jun from China 13-15, 13-15.


Post Sydney Richard increased to a highest position of No7 in the World where he remained for almost three years beating World No1 Roslin Hashim on two occasions, Koreas Shon Seung Mo, Ronald Susilo from Singapore, Chen Yu from China, Lee Chong Wei from Malaysia, and winning a bronze medal at the Manchester 2002 Commonwealth Games. Training was based with the Danish National Team in Copenhagen with top players like Kenneth Jonassen and Peter Gade.



In late 2002, Richard received his second major injury with a complication from his original surgery in 1998. After another major operation and almosy another year out of the game Richard was back on the circuit several month before the end of qualifying for the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. Again after some great Tournament wins and beating World Champion Xia Xuanza at the 2004 All England Championships, Athens selection was confirmed.

However the injury and schedule took its toll and shortly before the start of the Athens 2004 Olympics Richard picked up a nasty virus. Despite the illness he reached the Last 16 of the Games, beating Portugal’s Vasconcelos 15-5, 15-6 before losing to the Silver Medallist Shon from Korea.

After recovery from illness Richard once again came back maintaining a World Top 25 World Ranking and beating players like Japans World No12 Sato, Vietnams World No8 Nginn, Malaysian Yeoh Kay Bin, and Holland’s World No14 Eric Pang.

In 2005 Richard Vaughan founded the Richard Vaughan Badminton Academy an Elite non profit Academy to support young British Badminton Players. The RVBA has produced numerous British Junior Badminton Champions, Commonwealth Games players and National Senior Badminton Champions.

As a member of Team Bath Badminton Team (Bath University) he gained a BSc in Economics & Politics, a MA in Sports Eductaion and Development; helped the Team Bath Badminton Team winning the BUSA mens singles title and helping the Team to the title in 2007.

Richard has enjoyed working as the Performance Director for the Catalan Badminton Federation and Performance roles for the Badminton World Federation and Badminton Europe. Currently he is managing the BWF 'Road to London' and 'Road to Rio' projects in Africa and is completing an MBA at Leicester University.