Daisuke Takahashi (高橋 大輔, Takahashi Daisuke, born March 16, 1986) is a retired Japanese figure skater (men's singles and ice dance) and ice show producer. 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 Japan 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 Japanese 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.[1] After two seasons competing domestically in Japan, Takahashi began a career in ice dance partnered with Kana Muramoto beginning in the 2020–21 season.[2] 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.
He is not only a pioneer in the field of competitive skating in Japan, but has also been a key individual in innovating the Japanese ice show market by headlining Hyoen, a novel cross-genre show format (combining several genres, such as kabuki, with figure skating), which implements projection mapping and addresses underrepresented themes such as the portrayal of same-sex attraction, among others. Since January 2023, he has taken on the role of producer/director and made his debut with Ice Explosion 2023. In addition to performing in ice shows, he has also appeared as a dancer in Cheryl Burke's stage production Love on the Floor.