is a Japanese figure skater (men's singles and ice dance), ice show producer and actor. As a singles skater, he is the 2010 Olympic bronze medalist, the 2010 World champion, the 2012–13 Grand Prix Final champion, a two-time (2008, 2011) Four Continents champion, and a five-time (2006–2008, 2010, 2012) Japanese national champion.

Takahashi represented Japan at the 2006 Winter Olympics, 2010 Winter Olympics, and 2014 Winter Olympics. His bronze medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics was the first Olympic medal for an Asian country in the men's singles event. He was also the first Asian man to win a World title at the 2010 World Championships. At the 2012–13 Grand Prix Final, Takahashi made history again as the first Asian man to win a gold medal in the event, an addition to his previous accomplishment of being the first Japanese man to medal at the event in 2005.

Takahashi retired on October 14, 2014, but returned to competitive skating on July 1, 2018. After two seasons competing domestically in Japan, Takahashi began a career in ice dance partnered with Kana Muramoto beginning in the 2020–21 season. With Muramoto he is the 2022 Four Continents silver medalist, the 2022–23 Japanese national champion and the 2022 Denis Ten Memorial Challenge champion. Takahashi is the first and at present only competitor to have earned medals at the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships in two different disciplines.

Although he has struggled with the lingering effects of an anterior cruciate ligament rupture since 2008, his senior career spanned 16 seasons in singles skating and ice dance combined, which is well above the average senior career length in any discipline in the era of the ISU Judging System.

Takahashi, a pioneer of men's singles skating in Japan and Asia, is also known and admired for his unique style, and has been be cited as an inspiration by his peers including as Patrick Chan, Tatsuki Machida,斎藤貴子編『フィギュアスケート07』毎日新聞社、2007年4月、p.青嶋ひろの「もっと知りたい New Face 第2回 町田樹」『フィギュアスケートDays vol.2』DAI-X出版、2007年3月、pp.60–61 Adam Rippon or Tomáš Verner as well as by skaters of younger generations such as Shoma Uno, Denis Ten, Cha Jun-hwan, Jason Brown, Deniss Vasiljevs, Misha Ge, Lewis Gibson, Jimmy Ma or Kazuki Tomono.

Outside of the competitive field Takahashi has been a key individual in innovating the Japanese ice show market by headlining Hyoen, a new cross-genre show format, which combines figure skating and Japanese culture (incorporating several genres, such as kabuki, the Takarazuka Revue, musicals and literature) and by producing Kassouya, an ensemble show that provides performance opportunities for and nurtures young figure skaters.

In addition to performing in ice shows, he has also appeared as a dancer in Cheryl Burke's stage production Love on the Floor.

In July/August 2024 he made his acting debut in the movie Kura no Aru Machi (蔵のある街) (engl. The Tales of Kurashiki), written and directed by Emiko Hiramatsu. The movie is scheduled to be released in cinemas nationwide in the summer of 2025.

For October 2025 he is scheduled to make his stage acting debut at the Nagoya Odori NEO festival.

Career Early career Born in Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture, Japan, Takahashi began figure skating when he was eight years old. When a skating rink was built near his house, he went with his mother to watch the skaters at the rink and, afterward, enrolled in the figure skating club. His mother intended for him to enroll in the ice hockey club, but he did not like the protective gear of ice hockey and enrolled instead in the figure skating club.

Takahashi had a successful junior career, winning the 2002 World Junior Championships in his first and only appearance at that competition. Takahashi is the first Japanese man to have won the title.

Senior career Senior debut For the 2002–03 season, Takahashi turned senior. He struggled with consistency during the first few years of his senior career. In 2004, he moved to Osaka to attend university – the university built a rink for him and other elite skaters.

Takahashi won a bronze medal at the 2005 Four Continents Championships and went on to the 2005 World Championships as the second-ranked of the two Japanese men on the World team, after Takeshi Honda. However, when Honda was forced to withdraw due to injury, it fell on Takahashi to qualify spots for Japan at the 2006 Winter Olympics. Takahashi placed 15th, qualifying only one spot for the Japanese men.

2005–06 season Takahashi won his first Grand Prix Assignment of the season, 2005 Skate America, and won the bronze medal at the 2005 NHK Trophy, and thus, qualified for the 2005–2006 Grand Prix Final where he placed third, becoming the first Japanese man to medal at the event.

The selection criteria for the allocation of Olympic spots considered "retained points" from the 2004–2005 season (70% of the athlete's best international competition results) as well as the points calculated from the athletes' top two international competition results of the 2005–2006 season and the 2005–06 Japanese Championships.

Takahashi and Nobunari Oda, who had turned senior in the 2005–06 season and emerged as a challenger for Japan's sole men's Olympic spot, both had very good Grand Prix seasons. However, due to the points accumulated in the previous season, Takahashi was the first choice for the Olympic berth, even if he would not go on to win the final ranking competition, the 2005–06 Japanese Championships.

At the 2005–06 Japanese Championships, Oda was initially declared the winner, but his gold medal was revoked when a glitch in the calculation of scores in the event's computer system was discovered. The reason for the error lay in Oda's first jump combination, a combination of triple Axel, triple toe loop and triple loop. The last jump of the combination, the triple loop, was initially incorrectly identified as a double jump, but was later corrected to an under-rotated triple jump attempt.

This is where the Zayak rule came into play, which says that in a free skate "of all triple and quadruple jumps only two can be executed twice." Oda had performed two triple toe loops and two triple Lutzes, and since he had also performed a triple loop and the loop at the end of his first combination jump was corrected to an under-rotated attempt at another triple, he had performed three triple jumps twice. As a result, the score for the second triple lutz was invalidated. The rankings were reversed and Takahashi was awarded the gold.

However, due to both skaters' strong results during the 2005–2006 season, the Japanese Skating Federation split the international assignments, giving Takahashi the Olympic berth and Oda a place at the World Championship. At the 2006 Winter Olympics, Takahashi was in a good position after the short program but had a poor free skate and placed 8th overall.

2006–07 season In the 2006–07 competitive season, Takahashi won a silver medal at 2006 Skate Canada International, then gold at the 2006 NHK Trophy. He qualified for the Grand Prix Final and won the silver medal, although he was ill. He won the Japanese Championships, taking the national title for the second year in a row, and then went on to the Winter Universiade in Turin, Italy, which he won as well.

Takahashi placed third in the short program at the 2007 World Championships. In the free skate, he skated the performance of his life in his home country, placing first in that segment and ending up winning the silver medal, trailing Brian Joubert narrowly. It was the first silver medal for Japan in the men's event at Worlds. Together with Oda, who placed seventh, Takahashi secured 3 spots for the 2008 World Championships.

Following that season, the ISU ranked Takahashi first in the world. However, over the summer, the ISU tweaked its scoring criteria. Takahashi had been placed on top, just ahead of Brian Joubert, partly due to Takahashi's victory at the Winter Universiade, a competition for which Brian Joubert was not eligible, as Joubert was not a university student. The ISU determined that the results of the Winter Universiade could not be used to calculate world ranking, and Takahashi's ranking fell from first to second place.

2007–08 season In the 2007–08 season, he won gold at both his Grand Prix events and then silver at the Grand Prix Final behind Stéphane Lambiel. A few weeks later, he won his third Japanese national title and was named to the Four Continents and Worlds teams.

Takahashi won the 2008 Four Continents Championships, scoring a new record in the free skate (175.84) and in the total score (264.41) under the ISU Judging System.

He was considered a favorite heading into the 2008 World Championships but finished off the podium after a disappointing free skate in which he fell on his second quad toe attempt, then stumbled on a triple Axel and triple loop, and, finally, performed an extra combination, an invalid element, which did not count towards his points total. Placing fourth overall, he and Takahiko Kozuka, who placed eighth, were able to maintain three spots for the Japanese men at the 2009 World Championships.

In May 2008, Takahashi announced that he had parted ways with Nikolai Morozov, who had been his co-coach for several years in Hackensack, New Jersey. Morozov explained the split by stating that he could no longer coach Takahashi due to problems with Takahashi's new agent. Takahashi continued training under coach Utako Nagamitsu and jump coach Takeshi Honda in Osaka, Japan.

2008–09 season Takahashi was originally assigned to the 2008 Cup of China and the 2008 NHK Trophy for the 2008–09 Grand Prix season. He had to withdraw after suffering a torn ACL in his right knee on October 31, 2008, only a few days before his first event. It was later reported that Takahashi would undergo surgery to repair ligament damage and his right meniscus and would miss the entire 2008–09 season. A bolt was inserted into his right knee. He was able to return to the ice in April and began practicing jumps in June.

2009–10 season

After recovering from the surgery and returning to training normally, Takahashi began the Olympic season at the 2009 Finlandia Trophy, which he won. For the Grand Prix season, he was assigned to compete at the 2009 Skate Canada International and 2009 NHK Trophy. He placed second at Skate Canada and fourth at the NHK Trophy. Those placements qualified him to compete in the Grand Prix Final. At the final, he led after the short program with a new personal best of 89.95 but was fifth in the free skate and fifth overall.

He won his fourth national title at the 2009–10 Japanese Championships. At the 2010 Winter Olympics, Takahashi won the bronze medal with a score of 247.43. It was the first Olympic medal to be won by a male figure skater representing an Asian country. Takahashi said about his historic achievement: "I was so happy I was in tears. I am not normally like that. The Olympics are very special. I saw the same faces at the venue that I see at other competitions, but the atmosphere was totally different. There was a lot of pressure on everyone so I am very proud that I did my best under those conditions." He said about standing on the Olympic podium: "That feeling was something I never felt before. I was thinking about all of the time I had invested to get onto that podium and all the people who had helped me realize that dream."

Takahashi went on to dominate the men’s event at the 2010 World Championships in Turin, Italy with two outstanding performances. He won the gold medal with a combined total of 257.70, more than 10 points over his nearest rival, becoming the first Asian to win a world championship in men's singles. Takahashi’s jump coach, 2002 and 2003 World bronze medalist Takeshi Honda, said: "Daisuke’s victory was a big step forward for Japanese men’s skating. I was very happy for him because I see him train so hard every day."