Wednesday the banzuke committee drew up the new ranking list for the Kyushu tournament. While the details will be held close to the vest for the next several weeks they did announce the promotions to Juryo, as is customary. Congratulations to Roga and Tsushimanada!
Roga (Futagoyama-beya) has spent the last two years near the top of Makushita, grinding for that elusive promotion slot. Even in the “promotion zone” kachi-koshi is not quite good enough, sometimes. But he’s made a good run with four consecutive kachi-koshi. He aims higher, hoping to catch up to his contemporaries, like Hoshoryu, Oho, and Kotoshoho who’ve already established themselves in Makuuchi.
Tsushimanada (Sakaigawa) also found himself grinding it out in Makushita after his amateur sumo career at Nihon University. He looks up to his senpai, Myogiryu and Sadanoumi. He picked up his fifth win against Gonoyama, clinching his own promotion in his final bout*. Good luck to you both!
* Edited to reflect that I was probably wrong about Gonoyama getting demoted.
The irony is that, before Takekuma-oyakaya (former ozeki Goeido) branched out from Sakaigawa, Tsushimanada and Gonoyama (then Nishikawa) were stablemates.
Gonoyama probably lucked out, along with Tochimaru it’s probably Asanowaka going down unless they’ve decided to be unbelievably generous to long covid victims.
Losing 2/3 exchange bouts and henka-ing to win the other one, what a way to stay up.
Updated. Thank you for the correction.
I agree Gonoyama almost certainly stays, with Asanowaka dropping to make space. 6-9 at M12e is usually enough to stay, especially when the next-best promotion cases are 4-3 at Ms4w and 5-2 at Ms5w.
Corrected. Thank you!