With the national team, Richardson also received one silver medal and three bronze medals at the World Championships in 1993, 1997, 2003 and 2005, and won the bronze medal in the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.[4] He holds the record for most caps for the French national team with 417 appearances.[5] As the captain of the national team, Richardson was France's flag bearer during the 2004 Olympic Games opening ceremony in Athens.[5]
Club career
Richardson started playing handball when he was six years old and was a part of the youth team at Saint-Pierre HBC from 1977 to 1989.[6] In 1988, he was spotted during a match at Réunion Island by French national team head coach Daniel Costantini who was scouting for a Réunionese player for Bataillon de Joinville, a military unit of the French army for sport conscripts.[6][7] After completing his military service, Richardson signed for Paris-Asnières in 1989.[6]
Richardson returned to France in 2005 to play for Chambéry Savoie Handball. In 2008, Richardson retired after a final match against US Ivry, but later came out of retirement to briefly play for Rhein-Neckar Löwen in 2009.
France finished second at the 1997 World Championship and fourth at the 2000 European Championship, where Richardson received his third most valuable player award for a major international competition. He won the 2001 World Championship with the national team, and placed third at the World Championships in 2003 and 2005.
Richardson retired from the national team in 2005, having made 417 appearances and scored 775 goals. The French Handball Federation celebrated his farewell to the team with a ceremony after the Paris-Bercy tournament attended by sport figures and his mother, who had traveled from their native Réunion.[8] Richardson dedicated the tournament to his father who had recently passed away.[8]
