Daisuke Takahashi
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 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, who is not only a pioneer of men's singles skating in Japan and Asia, but also known and admired for his outstanding musicality, expressiveness and versatility as well as his unique style, has been and frequently continues to be cited as an inspiration and idol by his peers such as Patrick Chan, Tatsuki Machida, Adam Rippon or Tomáš Verner as well as by skaters of younger generations such as Shoma Uno, Denis Ten, Cha Jun-hwan, Jason Brown, Misha Ge 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 (combining several genres, such as kabuki and the Takarazuka Revue with figure skating). In January 2023, he made his debut as a producer/director 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.