Jonathan Vaughters (born June 10, 1973 in Denver) is an American former professional racing cyclist and current manager of the Garmin-Barracuda professional cycling team.

Jonathan Vaughters started competitive cycling in the 1980s, racing in the Red Zinger Mini Classics youth cycling series in Colorado. He was considered to be a natural climber, and was soon noticed. In 1993, he was second in the Tour of Venezuela, in which he participated with the U.S. amateur team. He was recruited for the next season by the professional team Santa Clara, led by José Luis Nunes, a Catholic member of Opus Dei. Despite the fears of his parents, he left for Europe in order to start his professional career. According to Vaughters, Santa Clara was a very conservative team with hostile management who even made his bike "disappear" in order to discourage him from continuing.^{[citation needed]}

In 1997 he moved to John Wordin's Comptel Data team, entering races he described as "A thousands times easier than being in Europe." He had a successful season becoming US National Time Trial Champion, and was 3rd in the National Road Race. His successes led to him signing for U.S. Postal Service cycling team. He won the time trial of the Dauphine Libere and finished 2nd overall to Alexandre Vinokourov after losing the general classification leadership on the final stage. He then went on to win the Route du Sud in preparation for the Tour de France as part of Lance Armstrong's team that went on to Armstrong's first win. In that Tour, he earned the nickname "El Gato" (The Cat in Spanish), having landed on his feet after being thrown headfirst over his handlebars in the first stage. In the second stage, he cut his chin in a crash, and had to abandon the race. This started his reputation as a somewhat innocent victim in a long series of ill-timed crashes, with an uncanny knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.