As reported by Herouth on Twitter a short time ago
Former Ozeki Tochinoshin has withdrawn from the Kyushu Basho due to an injury to an abdominal muscle. This effectively ends his campaign to return to the rank of Ozeki, and his heartbreaking news for his fans world wide.
We wish him a successful recovery and a quick return to action.
Ozeki is gone, but I think he could have another yusho in him if he gets in good shape. Hopefully he can regroup with a goal like that in mind.
14.3% of the top division is now kyujo and we’re not even though five days of action
furiously edits preview post again and again
The arguments before this tournament that the raised dohyo isn’t the cause of most injuries, and that the kosho seido system wasn’t practical because too many rikishi were absent, haven’t aged well.
Tough to say, re: kosho. Tomokaze, Wakatakage, Goeido were all injuries suffered on dohyo in this basho. Ichinojo took the tournament off regardless of kosho not existing and Kakuryu isn’t affected by it.
So out of the six makuuchi guys going kyujo, only Tochinoshin really would have benefitted from it. Given his ongoing problems since Ozeki promotion, would it have helped? Undoubtedly. Would it have actually made a difference though? Not as clear.
I think some form of change is required (John Gunning’s parachute payments suggestion is, I think, probably the best and most logical solution so far) but statistically I’m not sure this tournament helps those who champion the cause of that particular system as it was.
It’s almost as if a system that punishes people for taking time to heal ISN’T a good idea for a sport.
Don’t worry though – that blanket ban on social media will get the new fans flocking in….
What individual sport that uses a ranking hierarchy allows people to sit out competition without penalty?
Most individual sports your earnings depend on your performance in the events/tournaments not your ranking. Also sumo ranking has very little “memory”. Take tennis as an example. First of all successful athletes glide down kinda slowly, as it takes a year for your points to fade out. Second the ranking only determines your seating in the tournament, nothing more. Successful athletes returning from injury often get wildcards to enter the tournament regardless of ranking, so they basically start in the same position as the #1 guy. Even if they don’t get a wildcard, they can go through qualifications.
In sumo you need at least as long to move up again as you sat out and that would require basically require you to go undefeated. The punishment for injury in sumo is much higher than in any other individual sport I can think of. Where else are you forced to crawl your way through junior leagues/tournaments till you can finally after a year or two compete at your level again?
If you’re forced to sit out 6+ months, the tennis ranking systems on their own are just as punishing as Ozumo’s is. (Especially if you’re missing the entire stretch from the French to the US Open.) And plenty of top 100-quality tennis players – which I’d argue is roughly equivalent to makuuchi status – aren’t popular enough to receive more than a token (often local) wildcard while returning from injury.
For the vast majority of players suffering serious injuries, the only thing that makes the tennis way of dealing with injuries superior is that returning players are provided with more skill-appropriate “virtual” positions via the Special Ranking (WTA) / Protected Ranking (ATP) rules for tournament entry purposes. (Both orgs’ rules require being out of action for at least six months in order to to be eligible.)
The huge difference is that currently you need about 2500 points to reach top 10, 200 for top 15, 1400 for top 30 and 1000 for top 50 (mens ranking).
Winning a grand slam gives 2k points, finals still 1200. Other tournaments give 1000/500/250 for winner depending on category. tournaments happen a lot more often than sumo … plenty of chances to return quickly, if you are that good plus you can earn money from the first tournament you enter again.
Wildcards are nice of course, but if you don’t get one, you can go through qualification. You can go through qualification all the way to a grand slam final … doesn’t happen often, but sumo doesn’t offer any remotely comparable chance to get back/up quickly.
The man seems to have virtually no haters whatsoever. He appears to be genuinely liked by everyone. On the flip side, if he didn’t have bad luck, he’d have no luck at all.
I never really liked his sumo, but I have to say this news made me sad.
A finger curled and a misstep and boom, kadoban. Hope he recovers well enough.
Unfortunate news. I’m not surprised that other muscles over-extended themselves to cover for the weaker ones he’s been dealing with, though.
That’s a very good point. He wasn’t able to do anything with his usual main weapon so was having to find unconventional ways to win
Unfortunate but….called it lol. I wouldn’t want to do sumo with an abdominal issue. I’m glad he took his health seriously (Unlike a certain active ozeki)
However the one thing I’m seeing over and over again is how that sort of damage to the cartilage can create an instability in your Rib Cage. If that is the case and ends up happening it seems that it would make it vastly more difficult to do his kind of sumo. This is just internet speculation though, so take that with a grain of salt.
I understand there are ‘Traditions’ in Sumo, and that’s both it’s benefit and it’s Achilles heel. Injuries happen in all sports from team to individual. But demotion for an injured athlete seems the hardest in Sumo. ALL injured athletes, NEED TIME to heal and most sports consider that when rankings or return position are part of the sport.
Sumo really NEEDS to get it’s act together and come up with a ‘formula’ that allows higher ranked wrestlers time to completely heal without fear of losing position; meaning – lost position or rank should be the result of wins or loses – NOT injury. I don’t have the answers but from an outside seat, it’s pretty obvious the quality of Sumo diminishes when higher ranked wrestlers suffer the ravages of ill-healing. It’s not 200, 300, or 400 years ago; this is 2019 and there’s nothing ‘Grand’ about Sumo’s future direction id it continues on with it’s poor treatment of it’s wrestlers.
I don’t understand why anyone would want to throw Ura’s rebuilt knees right back into makuuchi. Easing back into the swing of things with a lower intensity schedule makes sense to me. If they fall out of Juryo they don’t have to compete every day, either, just 7 times over 15 days.