Olsen began practicing athletics in his
teens in the late 1980s for the Aalborg AK. Olsen primarily focused on the
discus throw, but after switching
shot put technique from the glide style to rotational style, he improved dramatically during his four years at the
University of Idaho, where he was coached by Tim Taylor. Olsen achieved his first national victory at the age of 16 during the Danish National Indoor Youth Championships. The following year, at 17, while still in the youth category, he claimed both the national titles in shot put (16.08 meters) and discus throw (56.88 meters). Transitioning to the junior category in 1995, he clinched the national championship in shot put, using a 6 kg implement, both indoors (14.23 meters) and outdoors (15.17 meters). Although he appeared at the World Junior Championships in Sydney 1996, where he threw the
Discus, it was at the U23 European Championships in
Gothenburg in 1999 he made his first international impact, winning a silver medal. At the
2000 Summer Olympics in
Sydney, Olsen did not qualify for the final. Nevertheless, he received worldwide attention after he wrote in a
chat room that the winner of the final,
Arsi Harju had failed a
doping test. The rumour was false, and the incident caused the Danish
National Olympic Committee to send Joachim B. Olsen home prior to the closing of the Games. At the
2001 World Championships in Athletics, Olsen qualified for his first international final. Since then he has qualified for every final at Olympic, World and European Championships. In 2002 Olsen won the silver medal at the European Championships outdoor as well as indoor. In 2003 a hand injury held him back, but a revised training plan removed the pain in his wrist. Thus Olsen was ready for a comeback in 2004, and at the
2004 IAAF World Indoor Championships he won a Bronze medal - a placement he repeated at the
Olympic Games in Athens. But because of a positive doping of the gold medalist
Yuri Bilonog (
Ukraine), which caused the cancellation of the medal, Olsen inherited the silver medal after the announcement of redistributing medals. On 6 November 2005 Olsen injured his right ankle during practise. Several
ligaments were either torn or severely damaged. On 6 February 2006 he announced, that the injury had healed sufficiently for him to compete again at highest level. A month later, at the
World Indoor Championships, he managed to win a bronze medal with a throw of 21.16 metres. On 8 August 2008 at the
opening ceremony of the
Beijing Olympics, Olsen was the
flagbearer for
Denmark. He failed to reach the final. In 2008 Joachim Olsen became well known in the Danish publicity by his participation in, and winning of, the fifth season of the Danish version of
Dancing with the Stars. On 22 July 2009, he announced his withdrawal from shot putting, saying that while he had a dream of competing at the
2012 Summer Olympics, his physical condition would not allow it. He suffered a
slipped disc in April 2009. ==Political career==