[3] Richardson first made state selection for South Australia still aged eighteen, in the men's eight contesting the King's Cup at the 1966 Interstate Regatta.
[13] The Australian men's eight for the 1976 Montreal Olympics was mostly that year's King's Cup winning New South Wales crew excepting Richardson at bow and Malcolm Shaw in the two seat.
An injury during the campaign to Rob Lang saw the squad's selected sculler Ted Hale step into the five seat of the eight.
[13] For the 1980 Moscow Olympics the new Australian Director of Coaching Reinhold Batschi utilised small boating racing criteria and selected an eight with rowers from three states and picked the veteran Richardson as the stroke-man.
[5] While he was head coach of Canada, Canadian crews won sixty five medals at world championships and Olympics.
[5] Overall, crews individually coached by Richardson won seven gold, four silver and one bronze Olympic or world championship medals.
[5] In 1983 Richardson was a crewman on Australia II, the Royal Perth Yacht Club's entrant which contested and won the 1983 America's Cup.
Richardson was a grinder in a crew skippered by John Bertrand which became the first ever successful America's Cup challenger and ended a 132-year tenure by the New York Yacht Club.