Horrific If True
One thing to keep in mind, the Japanese sumo press sometimes is given to speculation, so take this one with a grain of salt. From Yahoo Japan comes a quote from the Tagonoura stable master. He states that injured Yokozuna Kisenosato my join the summer tour later during the month of August.
This could indicate that it has been decided to have him “heal naturally”, and that Kisenosato feels like he needs to be taking care of his Yokozuna duties. With Hakuho (fresh from a Mongolian golf course) the only Yokozuna on he tour, Kisenosato may have decided that he can put up with more suffering for the cause of sumo.
Readers should form their own opinion, but after 2 back to back kyujo tournaments, I would rather have a great Kisenosato in 2018 than a malfunctioning, one-armed Yokozuna at Aki. Hopefully, someone from the Sumo Kyokai and or the YDC will urge him to get medical repairs before engaging in more public displays of sumo.
Say it ain’t so…the photo you chose perfectly sums up what a bad idea this is.
The YDC has already urged him in (what the Japanese would consider) no uncertain terms to be kyujo from Aki and take his time to be in “perfect health”. If Tagonoura failed to understand a hint that even us Westerners can hear loud and clear, then I suppose he is intent on killing his Golden-egg-laying goose.
OTOH, it could be that Kisenosato will just join the tour for the promotional side and avoid bouts with anyone over the age of 10 – much like Ura did yesterday if I read the tweets right. If he settles for doing a dohyo-iri, give away some tegata, pushing around some toddlers in mawashi, and taking selfies with fans, it would be perfectly reasonable, though I’m sure Hakuho will snigger.
Agh. The news feeds are rather alarming today. One says he started practicing for Aki already (https://this.kiji.is/264656520029783542).
And in this one (http://www.sanspo.com/sports/news/20170731/sum17073105040001-n2.html) they are talking about Kisenosato performing a dohyo-iri for the revival of the northeastern region of Japan, which I suppose is fine, but then “there’s a chance that he’ll be joining the tour at that point”, followed by something that Tagonoura said to the effect of “Better get back on the track in the tour, resting is out of the question”, which I really hope I mistranslated. Ugh. If he actually said that, somebody slap him with a big fish, please.