Jack Taunton was considered one of the top sport medicine doctors in North America. Among his many achievements, Taunton worked with Canada’s teams at eight Olympic Games and was the chief medical officer for Canada at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia.

Taunton was then the chief medical officer for the entire 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver which was the first Games the International Olympic Committee’s Medical Commission did not didn’t make a single complaint. 

He served as team physician for both the Vancouver Grizzlies during their time in the NBA and the Vancouver Canucks of the NHL as well as the national women’s field hockey team for 24 years.

The former marathon runner coordinated the medical portion of Rick Hansen’s Man in Motion World Tour in the late 1980s, even running alongside Hansen’s wheelchair for nearly 100-kilometres a day in Saskatchewan. 

Taunton also helped found the Vancouver Sun Run and the Vancouver Marathon. He was part of the group that founded and built the Fortius Sport Health Centre, now the Christine Sinclair Community Centre, in Burnaby’s Central Valley. As Fortius’s medical director, Taunton was responsible for creating an integrated sports medicine concept.

Taunton founded many initiatives including SportMedBC and the BC Brain Wellness Program. He served at hundreds of other events locally and abroad and on over 50 provincial, national, and international medical committees relating to sport. 

In June 2024, Taunton was appointed to the Order of Canada. He died in October of that year. He was 77.