Today, the Jungyo was on a day off, and the tired rikishi went back to Tokyo to rest a little. So there are no torikumi or keiko to inform you about, and instead, here are a couple of Yokozuna items from the media.
Hakuho confirms his return on the 14th
The Dai-Yokozuna has confirmed that he will join the Jungyo on October 14th, when it stops at Kanazawa. In the meantime, he is mainly doing shiko and teppo back in Miyagino beya. “I wish to bring my body back to a state where I can take butsukari”, he said, “though I’ll start from torikumi and build up from there”.
As it turns out, during the Aki basho Hakuho fasted for four straight days (he already did that once during his recovery from his last injury), and lost 10kg off his weight, of which he gained back 5kg by now, ending up with the scale pointing at 150kg. “I believe I’ll be able to do sumo more easily this way”, he said.
He added that he also found a new stretching method, and that now both mentally and physically he is back in shape.
Kisenosato invents new ways to puzzle the press
So yesterday I reported that all Jungyo-attending Yokozuna exercised outdoors, each in his own fashion. Kisenosato’s fashion, it appears, involves using a wooden sword:
Apparently, the Yokozuna just found this wooden sword lying around. So he used it to improve his Shikiri. Does that need practice? “Yes, it’s a fundamental” said the Yokozuna. “That’s also important”. And the sword? He was not too forthcoming about the role of the sword.
My personal guess is that Kisenosato is trying to find ways to distract attention from his injured arm. Or he just likes to confuse the heck out of nagging sports reporters.
Famous nephew comes third in High-School championship
This is not really Jungyo-related, but somewhat Yokozuna-related. The famous young nephew of moto-Yokozuna Asashoryu came third in the National Sports Festival Junior Championship that took place two days ago. He repeated his wish to join the professionals in the forthcoming Kyushu basho, so watch out for the mae-zumo listings.
The grandson of another great yokozuna, Taiho, won the high-school championship. He was also planning on joining professional sumo in Kyushu, but since his championship qualified him for the national amateur sumo championships in December, his entry into the kyokai will be delayed.
That could earn him a tsukedashi, right?
If he finishes in the top 8, apparently.
If Hakuho comes back the way he did for Nagoya we could see another big run for The Boss!! Would love to see him make another run for Futabayama’s record!
Well, how he comes back is a good question. It seems he is now exploring innovative ways to fight his own health troubles. In Natsu and Nagoya he looked invincible and healthy as a young ox. Then all of a sudden this knee issue. Hard to tell what’s behind the facade. He’s probably in a better condition than Kisenosato, and nowhere in danger of retirement. But I wouldn’t count on invincibility. I’m pretty sure he’s going to be dropping a match or two in each basho from now on.
I agree. This knee issue almost came out of nowhere, and I would have never guessed it had been a nagging issue based on how well he did in his last two basho. He’ll probay drop a few bouts here and there as well, that record is most likely out of his reach now. Four and a half zensho-yushos seems like a pretty tall order, but Hakuho has made a career out of doing the unthinkable so we will see.
The national high school championship was back in August, Asashoryu’s nephew was runner-up in that one. This was the National Sports Festival junior championship.
Corrected.
Yeah, hard to translate Kokutai. In effect it’s a second national high school championship, right? haha
I don’t think there’s an official authority on it, but I’d class “National Sports Festival” as at least a semi-official translated name for the event. For instance, the Japanese Football Association refers to it by that term on its English-language pages: http://www.jfa.jp/eng/match/nationalsportsfestival_2017/
In any case, as far as I know high school enrolment is not strictly a requirement for being eligible for the Kokutai juniors, only being part of the relevant age bracket is. So technically a high school dropout can participate here, but not in the high school championships. In addition, I believe they also allow last-year middle schoolers to participate in the Kokutai on a case by case basis. (Not sure I’ve ever spotted any in the sumo competition, though.)