Having originally won silver in the relay event at the 2020 Summer Olympics, on 18 February 2022 it was announced that Kilty and his teammates Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake, Zharnel Hughes, and CJ Ujah would be stripped of their 4 × 100 metres relay 2020 Summer Olympics silver medals after Court of Arbitration for Sport found CJ Ujah guilty of a doping violation.

For the majority of 2011 he was without a coach and not funded, but he achieved personal bests in the 100  and 200 m.[4] After winning the 2014 World indoor sprint title, Kilty spoke to BBC News in mid-March about his family's dire financial conditions when he was young.

I actually won my first national title [in 2001] whilst living in a homeless hostel," he said, sharing a one bedroom flat with his parents and 4 brothers and sisters.

His father, Kevin Kilty, is Richard's strongest supporter and was himself a 10.8 sprinter in his youth before turning to bodybuilding and later becoming a bodyguard (according to an April 2012 interview with Athletics Weekly).

Kilty was then named as a captain of the GB team at the 2008 IAAF World Juniors in Bydgoszcz, where he made the semi-finals of his favoured 200 metres.

At the 2012 Aviva British National trials – held at Birmingham's Alexander Stadium, where athletes were selected for the London Olympics – Kilty entered only one event, the 200 metres, skipping the 100m.

Team GB selected only two men, first and second-place finishers Christian Malcolm and James Ellington, for the 200m, rejecting Kilty despite his having met the qualifying time.

[8] The athletics officials who selected Team GB for London said Kilty was not included in the squad because he lacked current form, having strained a hamstring muscle at the British Championships.

Kilty had met the qualifying standard for the Olympics in the 200 metres and believed that even though a pulled hamstring compromised his training in final weeks before the Games, he should have been the UK's third entry in the 200m.

"[10] After an unsuccessful appeal against his Olympics omission in 2012, Kilty thought about walking away from the sport, saying he felt "let down" by governing body British Athletics.

Reflecting back on the difficulties of 2013 – following his March 2014 win at Sopot – Kilty told UK's Sky Sports, "I considered quitting because I had no income and had to train on the road in trainers [running shoes].

[13] The 2013 outdoor season brought a dramatic improvement in the 200m, as Kilty ran a personal best of 20.34 seconds at the annual Résisprint International sprinters meet in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland (at 1,000 metres elevation) on 7 July 2013.

However, he was included as relay squad member and he ran the lead-off leg of the 4 X 100M in the heats at Moscow, where the team qualified with the second-fastest time (38.12 seconds) behind the United States.

While acknowledging the strong local support he had received in northeast England, Kilty said the move south to the Loughborough HiPAC was necessary because of the lack of elite-level sprinters with which to train in Teesside.

At the 2014 British Indoor Championships held in Birmingham on 8 February 2014, Kilty lowered his personal best in the 60 metres to 6.58 in the semi-finals, and he then ran 6.53 in the finals to finish third behind James Dasaolu and Dwain Chambers.

But he was added to Team GB one week later, when Dasaolu strained his left hamstring muscle while winning another 60 m race in Birmingham on 15 February.

Under rules established by the IAAF to discourage sprinters from "anticipating" the gun, any racer who reacts faster than 0.10, is deemed to have "false started" and is disqualified.

An online track and field website, SpeedEndurance.com, wrote on 12 March 2014 that across the history of the previous world indoor championships 60m final (through 2012), there had been a total of 10 sub 6.50 clockings, and all 10 of those athletes had run sub 10 seconds in the 100 metres.

Kilty is married to Lithuanian triple jumper Dovilė Dzindzaletaitė,[21] whom he met during the IAAF Diamond League meeting in London.