Sarah Hirshland

Sarah Hirshland (born in 1975) is the chief executive officer of the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee. From 2011 to 2018, she was a senior managing director and the chief commercial officer of the U.S. Golf Association.

Early life Hirshland was born Sarah Caitlin McDougall, in Silverthorne, Colorado. She moved with her parents to Durango, Colorado, and Littleton, Colorado, when she was young. She attended and in 1992 graduated from Kent Denver School high school, where she played for the girls' state soccer champions in 1990 to 1991. At the time, she hoped to become a sports medicine doctor for her hometown Denver Broncos. In 2007, talent agency and sports marketing company Wasserman Media Group (WMG) acquired OnSport.

US Golf Association (2011–18) In 2011, Hirshland left to become the senior managing director of business affairs for the U.S. Golf Association (USGA). Unlike most countries, the U.S. Olympic team does not receive any government money, but U.S. lawmakers still have ultimate authority over the USOC via the Ted Stevens Act. In her position she makes $600,000 a year, with a chance for a bonus of up to 50 percent, and handles relationships with 43 domestic Olympic sports organizations, as well as thousands of athletes, donors, fans, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Her task upon taking her job was also to restore credibility to the USOC's effort to provide safety for its athletes after a number of sex-abuse scandals, including the USA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal.

In December 2018, Hirshland fired the USOC chief of sport performance Alan Ashley, after a report found that he knew of accusations against Nassar more than a year before they became public knowledge, and deserved blame for his inaction and attempts to keep the accusations against Nassar quiet. That month, Hirshland said: "I would love to believe there will never be a bad guy, but there are going to be bad guys and bad girls. And we have to make sure that when there are, we very quickly have systems in place to find them, weed them out and get rid of them."

2020–present In February 2022, the IOC took the unusual step of saying that at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva would be allowed to continue to compete despite failing a doping test, but that there would not be an awards ceremony if she won events and medals would not be handed out until her case was resolved, because of lingering doubts about her eligibility. Hirshland said: "We are disappointed by the message this sends. This appears to be another chapter in the systemic and pervasive disregard for clean sport by Russia." Two years later, in January 2024, after Valieva kept more than a dozen other athletes from receiving their medals, she was banned from competition for four years by an arbitration panel at the Court of Arbitration for Sport--retroactive to the date she gave the sample, December 25, 2021--and therefore had to forfeit her medals earned during that period. Hirshland said that the decision was a “significant win not only for Team USA athletes, but also for athletes worldwide who practice fair play and advocate for clean sport.” The Russian Olympic Committee responded by writing: "war has been declared on Russian sports."

In March 2022, after the International Paralympic Committee decided to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete in the Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, Hirshland wrote: "we are disappointed in this outcome as it excuses Russia’s disregard for not only the Olympic Truce, but also for the victims of a senseless war."

In May 2022, Russia placed Hirshland on its list of American citizens permanently banned from entering the country, along with among others many U.S. senators and representatives from both the Democratic and Republican parties.

On January 4, 2024, Hirshland wrote a letter in support of three Russian Olympic fencers who had defected to the United States because of their opposition to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Konstantin Lokhanov, Sergey Bida, and Violetta Bida, being granted U.S. citizenship, saying: "Our intention in endorsing their cause is to enable them to proudly represent our remarkable nation in the upcoming 2024 Olympic Games and other forthcoming international competitions." Sergey Bida expressed surprise about receiving the letter of support from the USOPC, saying: "This kind of letter, it’s impossible in Russia."