Early career Born in
Kurashiki, 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2005–06 Japanese Championships, Oda was initially declared the winner, but his gold medal was revoked when a glitch in the calculation of scores in the event's computer system was discovered.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. 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." Together with Kozuka's result, who placed tenth, three spots were maintained for the
2011 World Championships. Upon his return from Turin a parade was held in his hometown of Kurashiki to celebrate his historic achievements. Takahashi said about the reception he received when he returned home from Italy: "
I did not realize it when I was in Torino, but my victory was bigger news in Japan than I thought. I was very surprised about that." Together with
Mao Asada he was also invited to a garden party held by the
Emperor and
Empress of Japan to honour the achievements of all of the Japanese athletes, who medaled at the
2010 Winter Olympics. At the
2011 World Championships, he was third in the short program but finished in fifth overall. In the free skate, a screw in his boot came loose on his first element, a quad toe. where he won the silver medal. The French crowd believed he deserved the gold medal over Patrick Chan, who had mistakes, including a fall on a double Axel, and booed the final result. Takahashi stated that he was pleased with the result, which he had not expected after his off-season surgery. and thus securing three spots for the Japanese men's team at the
2014 Olympics and
2014 World Championships, together with Hanyu, who placed fourth.
2013–14 season In the 2013–14 ISU Grand Prix season, Takahashi placed 4th at
2013 Skate America before winning the
2013 NHK Trophy for the fifth and final time and thus qualifying for the
Grand Prix Final, from which he had to withdraw due to an injury, a shinbone bruise, he sustained on November 26th. He was replaced by compatriot Nobunari Oda, who was the first alternate. At the
Japanese Championships, not having recovered from the injury, he placed 4th in the short program and 5th in the free skate to place 5th overall. Due to satisfying multiple selection criteria over other contenders, including
ISU World Standings and ISU Season's Best Score, he was named to the
Sochi Olympic team. At the Olympics, he finished 4th in the short program and 6th in the free skate to finish 6th overall, with a total score of 250.67. He was originally slated to compete at the
2014 World Championships in
Saitama,
Japan, but pulled out due to lingering effects of his injury. Takahashi announced his retirement from competitive skating in October 2014.
2018–19 season Takahashi announced his intent to return to competitive skating at the start of the 2018–19 season. Asked for his goal/reason for coming out of retirement, he replied: "''I have decided that I want to live as a skating performer, so my goal is to perform the best I can until I feel I have reached my limits. To be able to do so, I see this return to active competition as the start. I haven't thought about my goals as an active skater yet. However, in terms of goals for the future, I think the time I can perform is short (due to my age), and I don't know what the future holds for figure skating, and I don't know how long I'll have a place to skate, but as long as I have the opportunity, I want to show my best performances in ice shows. After that, if there is anything I can do to help the younger skaters involved in skating, I would like to support them. I tried out different talking jobs (as a newscaster, etc.), but I've come to realise that I don't have the talent for that. I think that I'm better suited to expressing myself through my body, regardless of whether I have talent or not. I've come to realise that people have their own strengths and weaknesses, so I want to rebuild my body again… When I went to New York, I didn’t skate for months and just quit completely. If I had kept performing in shows after retiring, I probably wouldn’t have ended up like this, but I realised that it takes time to get back to that level.''" At the
2018–19 Japan Championships he placed second behind Shoma Uno, but declined offers of international assignments.
2019–20 season In September 2019, Takahashi announced that he would finish his competitive singles career that season and switch to competing in
ice dance with partner
Kana Muramoto.
2020–21 season Following the conclusion of his singles career, Takahashi began training with Muramoto in
Florida under
Marina Zoueva, the coach of Olympic champions
Virtue/
Moir and
Davis/
White. Takahashi's star status in Japan made his decision to switch to ice dance a point of considerable interest in the country's media and figure skating audience. Muramoto decided to retire with him to pursue a professional show career together. == Post-competitive career ==