About Daisuke Takahashi
Daisuke Takahashi (高橋 大輔, Takahashi Daisuke; born March 16, 1986) 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, 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. Takahashi had a successful junior career, winning the 2002 World Junior Championships in his first and only appearance at that competition. 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 Four Continents champion, and a five-time Japanese national champion.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.