Many of the readers may already be experiencing the basho withdrawal jitters. Why is there nothing happening in the sumo world in June? Where is my sumo fix?
In order to help you prepare yourself in advance and ask your favorite shrink for the appropriate medications, I hereby introduce you to the Grand Sumo Calendar.
Following the two hana-zumo events, the dohyo in the Ryogoku Kokugikan was not left unattended. On Monday, February 12, the 8th Hakuho Cup took place.
The Hakuho Cup is a children’s sumo event, second only to the annual Wanpaku National Championship. Its origins are actually in the Asashoryu Cup. The Wanpaku National Championship is an all-Japanese event, and Asashoryu wished to put some Mongolian kids on the dohyo in the Kokugikan. This dream has finally come to fruition in August 2009, in an event for boys age 8-12, won by the Mongolian delegation winning all of its bouts. Asashoryu wanted to make this an annual event, but unfortunately he was forced to retire a few months later, and the event was never repeated.
With Asashoryu gone, Hakuho took his place as the leading (and only) Yokozuna, and starting in 2011, established his own event. And as usual with Hakuho, anything Asashoryu did, he improved upon. The Hakuho cup in its current form is an event for boys from first to ninth grade. No less than 1300 boys attended this year’s event, hailing not only from Mongolia and Japan, but also from the USA, Taiwan, Hong-Kong, Mainland China, Thailand and South Korea.
The Mongolian delegation practiced at Tomozuna beya:
While the “Aloha State” team practiced at Musashigawa:
Other heya have also opened their dohyo to the various sumo school clubs and delegations.
On the day itself, many bouts took place on temporary dohyos spread around the kokugikan. At lunch break, Hakuho and Yoshikaze – always involved in children sumo – sat down for a public chat on the dohyo. They were joined by a surprise guest:
This was none other than the 66th Yokozuna, the former Wakanohana, Mr. Masaru Hanada. Yes, Takanohana’s older and estranged brother.
This was the first time for the 66th and the 69th Yokozuna to meet face to face, and also the first time for the former Wakanohana to step up the dohyo in the Kokugikan since his retirement in 2000. Hakuho told Hanada that he has been watching his videos since he entered into the sumo world, and always thought he would be a tough one to engage with. Hanada said “You’re huge!”, and then addressed the child wrestlers: “Don’t worry. Even small ones can become Yokozuna, like I did. Just be diligent with your keiko!” (Wakanohana was merely 181cm tall).
Among the participants in the event was Hakuho’s own eldest son, Mahato. That’s the same kid who participated in the 2017 summer Jungyo and asked to engage Mitakeumi, to take revenge (Mitakeumi has beaten Hakuho in the Nagoya basho).
Hakuho Jr. is 9 years old, in the third grade, and therefore this has been his third appearance in his father’s tournament. And for the first time, he actually won a bout – he was winless in the previous two occasions. He overcame a henka, got a brief migi-yotsu and finished with an uwate-nage. The proud father said “Keiko doesn’t lie. He does 200 shiko stomps… but not every day.” The boy was defeated in his next bout, though.
The tournament winner for the second grade was Takaaki Uno from Kanazawa.
The Kanazawa delegation got a lot of support from the latest Kanazawa sekitori, Enho:
And finally, here is a video with a summary of the events of the day, including the Hakuho jr. bout and various other bouts:
Yes, they are children. The tears are real.
As I reported yesterday, the Jungyo was on a day off today, but some of the rikishi went to Asakura, Fukuoka, which was struck by torrential rains in July and suffered great deveastation, to comfort and cheer the surviving residents.
But what was first reported as “Hakuho and Kotoshogiku and a few officials” turned out to be a delegation of 46 men, 30 of whom were rikishi, who were there to make the survivors happy.
After observing a moment of silence beside the sculpture of Yokozuna Umegatani, who hailed from Asakura, the rikishi proceeded to a local venue where they mingled with the locals, and offered red-and-white sweets.
About 1200 people, including the local primary school kids, filled the main hall, where they viewed a demonstration of how an oicho-mage is done, listened to sumo-jinku, and of course, savoured the experience of Hakuho’s dohyo-iri.
Outside the venue, the locals could also enjoy free chanko-nabe.
The man of the day surprisingly turned out to be Tamawashi. His heya stayed at Asakura during the Kyushu basho. Many of the locals showed warm hospitality toward the former sekiwake, and he, in exchange, promised them that he would win a double-figure kachi-koshi. And as you may recall, he delivered!
So today, when he came back there, he was greeted warmly as a returning son, and said “So many familiar faces. It feels like a homecoming. I’ll consider Asakura as my second home town from now”.
He added that now he is eyeing the “top of the top”, meaning that he is not settling for a return to san’yaku, but he is going to go for an Ozeki run. Best of luck, Bejeweled Eagle!
It is with deep sorrow, and a little fear as I clutch my Michael Kiwanuka tickets for tomorrow, that I extend my condolences to the people of London, Manchester and Manila. The threat of terrorism is unfortunately an uncomfortable reality that hangs over high-profile, popular events and locations. We should be able to gather for work and enjoy entertainment without fear that we may not return home. I’m not going to leave this post up long…I’ll probably delete it soon because I don’t want to dwell on dark topics…but I wanted to express sympathy to those of you who may have been affected, or know someone who was.
It’s not something new. It’s been present in our literature, cinema and art for longer than Guy Fawkes masks have been around. Thomas Harris’s first book wasn’t about Hannibal Lector; it was a 1975 thriller about the race to stop a blimp from bombing the Super Bowl.
Throughout my childhood, the specter of hijackings hanged over the act of flying but the first time terrorism really registered as something in my consciousness occurred as a kid, visiting London in the 80s at the end of the Troubles, when unable to return to our hotel because of a bomb threat. Then, during high school, the attacks in Oklahoma City and at our own Olympic Games in Atlanta captured our attention. And though I knew about it, the sarin attack in Tokyo occurred but the gravity and reality of it didn’t really hit me until I found myself in Kasumigaseki station many years later.
The events of September 11th didn’t really surprise me. I had been in the lounge at the top of one of the towers of the World Trade Center 6 months before, watching the birds circling below my feet and wondering what would happen if a plane was lost in the city. It had happened before, and it has happened since. Usually by accident, but it wasn’t hard to imagine an event where it wasn’t. And over the past 18 years, whether it be Bangkok, or Nairobi, or Paris with frustrating regularity there seems to be another attack which has me concerned about friends I met at that location, or family I know who frequent it, or friends of friends, or friends of friends of friends.
I work in DC, next to the Navy Yard, and was at work when a laid off contractor slipped through security and killed 13 people, one of whom had been evacuated but succumbed to his injuries in front of the CVS. We were locked down that day, just as our kids were last year when a divorced security guard started killing random people in parking lots around Montgomery County. That reminded my neighbors of the heightened fears during the DC sniper events since one of the shootings occurred at the gas station a block from here. I’m pretty jaded now.
It is madness, and I offer no advice or answers. I have none. I can only offer my sympathy and hope that this last one was the last one.