Meet the DO who’s serving as the Team USA CMO for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympic & Paralympic Games

Before he was an osteopathic physician, Jonathan Finnoff, DO, was a professional athlete. Sports played a critical role in his upbringing and inspired him to pursue sports medicine. As a DO, he also had his eye on leadership roles, which eventually led him to his current position as chief medical officer (CMO) for the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC), a role he has held for the past six years, and the CMO for the Team USA delegation at the Olympic & Paralympic Games since Tokyo 2020.

“It’s important for people to give thought to what they dream about in a career and what their vision is,” Dr. Finnoff said. “If you know what you want, you’re far more likely to get it.”

The 2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, which are taking place in six locations across Italy, began on Feb. 6 and will continue through Feb. 22. The DO connected with Dr. Finnoff shortly before his flight to Europe, and he shared details about his past experience at the Games, how he prepares for them and how he found his way into this position.

After completing a sports medicine fellowship at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, Dr. Finnoff returned to the University of Utah where he worked in academic and sports medicine. When the 2002 Olympic and Paralympic Games came to Salt Lake City, Dr. Finnoff was appointed by the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (OCOG) to serve as the medical director for the athletes’ medical clinic at the Soldier Hollow venue during the Olympic Games and the venue medical officer for the Soldier Hollow venue during the Paralympic Games.

During the Salt Lake Games, Dr. Finnoff met the head team physician for the U.S. Ski Team, which led to an invitation to work with the team. Over the next 20 years, Dr. Finnoff became one of the team’s head physicians and established himself as a leader in sports medicine through his clinical experience, research, teaching and administrative positions. When the role of CMO of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee became available, he was a strong candidate and was hired.

“It’s a lot of fun. I get to work with the best athletes in the world and incredible “team behind the team” members from all over,” said Dr. Finnoff.

In this edited Q&A, read more about Dr. Finnoff’s journey in sports medicine and his insights on taking on one of the biggest roles at the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

As the CMO for Team USA at both the Olympic and Paralympic Games, what is your role? Do you have a typical day-to-day as you prepare?

We typically start preparing for the Games four years in advance, so we’re already well on our way preparing for the summer Los Angeles Games, as well as the next Winter Games in France. To prepare, we do multiple site visits, where we meet with representatives from the local medical system, the OCOG medical team and the U.S. embassy in each country. We also interface with the emergency systems in each country to prepare for any major medical incidents that may happen during the Games. Emergency preparedness is a critical element of pre-Games planning.

As it gets closer to the Games, we start to select our staff. For the Summer Olympic Games, we bring approximately 250 medical staff, while the Winter Olympic Games are staffed by approximately 90 medical professionals. After the staff is selected, we need to get them a temporary license in the relevant country and complete training to prepare them for their role, educate them on anti-doping and SafeSport regulations, ensure they are familiar with our Electronic Health Record (EHR) and create a “one team with one dream” culture.

For this year’s Games, we have a sports medicine clinic in each of the six Olympic villages. This required shipping almost 20 shipping containers full of medical supplies. Once our medical team and supplies arrive, we set up our clinics and interface with employees and volunteers.

Once the Games start in Italy, my typical day begins with an early morning workout. I then meet with my second-in-command for sports medicine, followed by the Team USA executive leadership team (of which I’m a member) to discuss issues that need to be addressed and to celebrate our successes. Other members of the leadership team include the USOPC CEO and heads of sport, legal, security, development, marketing and engagement, Games operations, government relations and human resources. 

This is followed by our daily medical meeting with my entire medical staff. In this meeting, I always start by restating our purpose, which is to deliver world-class, comprehensive healthcare to Team USA athletes, and our culture, which is to be “one team with one dream.” We then take some time to give shout-outs to people we would like to recognize for their good work. 

This is followed by a discussion of the prior day’s events, the upcoming medal events, the current medal table and lead reports from each village, psychological services, sports dietitian, National Governing Body (NGB) and strength and conditioning. I follow this up with an overview of our Team USA injury and illness epidemiologic data and updates from the OCOG and International Olympic Committee (IOC) sports medicine teams. I finish the meeting with a general discussion on hot topics, shared learnings and Q&A time.

The rest of the day is filled with a variety of duties, but the majority of my time is spent providing direct care to Team USA athletes and staff in the Team USA sports medicine clinic, which is open from 7 a.m. until 9 p.m., but frequently remains open late into the night to accommodate the training and competition schedules of athletes. I also accompany athletes to the Polyclinic, a “mini-hospital” in the Village, or OCOG-affiliated hospitals if they have more significant illnesses or injuries. In this case, we work closely with the OCOG’s medical team to ensure we leverage all available medical resources to stabilize the athlete and prepare them for travel home, either using an air ambulance or a commercial airline with a medical escort.

Our team is extremely busy—during the Paris Games in 2024, we dealt with 5,000 medical encounters for Team USA and numerous hospitalizations.

Have you worked at the Olympic and Paralympic Games before?

I have been the CMO for multiple Olympics—I’ve been to seven Olympic Games and five Paralympics. I started as CMO during the 2020 Tokyo Games (which took place in 2021 due to COVID), so this is my full-time job. I’ve gained a lot of knowledge and experience throughout these Games—after each is over, I collect data on the injuries and illnesses (both physical and mental) and come up with ways to prepare for and reduce those in future Games.

I also make decisions on what needs to be brought to the Games depending on the needs of our previous ones—we want to adjust each year to be as efficient and effective as possible without wasting any time or money. I also study how the “bigger, badder” things went—how did we react? How can we improve moving forward?

Where does funding come from for the medical staff and supplies?

All of our funding comes from television revenues, marketing relationships and private donations. We don’t receive any government funding.

What is your favorite part of the job?

I love that I have the privilege to work with the best athletes in the world every day. In addition, my job has an incredible amount of variety, including athlete care, running our sports medicine clinics at the Olympic & Paralympic Training Centers, managing our Elite Athlete Health Insurance, overseeing our Medical Network relationships, completing injury and illness prevention research, participating in the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) Therapeutic Use Exemption Expert Advisory Group, creating educational activities to prepare healthcare professionals to work with Olympic & Paralympic athletes, serving on the USOPC leadership team and developing strategic plans to guide our team into the future. This variety keeps it interesting.

What is your most memorable moment at the Games?

When I was working as one of the head team physicians for the U.S. Ski Team at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games, I covered the women’s team sprint event for cross-country skiing, where Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall won the first ever medal for U.S. female athletes in cross-country skiing. To be a part of this historic event was truly incredible. It’s a moment I will never forget.

What is the most difficult part of your position?

Emotionally, it’s so hard to witness when someone has spent their life preparing for their event and something out of their control prevents them from doing it. In these situations, not only do we provide psychological services to the athlete to help them through this challenging time, but we also provide resources for the team behind the team who are emotionally impacted.

Do you think DOs are especially equipped to take care of these athletes because of their commitment to the body, mind, spirit connection?

It’s a combination of things—DOs are holistic in their approach to patient care. Physicians who are attracted to the DO philosophy are also the type of people who work well as leaders, and since sports medicine works as a team, you need leaders. DOs have unique skills that should open doors to some of these opportunities in sports medicine and leadership as a whole. We have to take advantage of what we’ve learned in order to provide the best care to our patients.

Being a DO set me up to be successful—when I was in school, lots of people didn’t know how much they could do as a DO, but the sky really is the limit for physicians in osteopathic medicine. I hope people see my path and that it inspires them to achieve their vision too.

Watch the Olympic and Paralympic games in Italy through Feb. 22.

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