tarako

Anything new about Akebono?

Has anyone heard an update?

Can you give some background on injury protection? I'd love to know

Once, while on vacation in Hawaii, we were eating mochi anpan outside a bakery tucked away in an abandoned strip mall in Kailua. We'd just come from a drive over to Waimanalo to see the Akebono statue. Some local ladies sat down and struck up a conversation with us. One lady was from Waimanalo, and we ended up talking about sumo for the next half an hour. We spent a lot of time talking about what a heartthrob Chiyonofuji was ("the skin!!!), and how they and their girlfriends would go to the airport just to get a glimpse of Chiyonofuji when he and other sumo wrestlers came to town. They talked about following sumo, and later how highly they regarded the Hawaiians who had gone to Japan to pursue their dreams. I'm thinking of those nice ladies today, and hoping they aren't too sad.

This article was the result of a thread on the forum started by "skepticalsports" in May. I found both the discussion between the author and people on the forum and the resulting article really interesting: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-sumo-matchup-centuries-in-the-making/

What a tease, Mark ;)

I would love it.

The one thing I noticed that I like is that the previous ranks of athletes name the rank in english words. In the old website they relied on various (similar) colors to convey the same information. If you couldn't tell teal from green, you couldn't tell someone's various ranks apart. Hooray for that.

Just like the rest of the population, some are and some aren't :) What is really not sexy is the original article, and its basic lack of knowledge about sumo (citing that Hawaiian wrestlers have begun taking titles away from native Japanese -- what year is this?!)

You mean kawaigari?

I'll miss him. Over the last few years he wore more bandages than the rest of the makuuchi combined, but on a good day he could still bust a move :)

I don't post very often, but I do lurk. Thanks so much :)

I am not allowed to "like" anyone's posts. A pop-up tells me that I've reached my quota of positive feedback for the day (which is, apparently, nil)...

What is the age of the youngest member of the YDC?

It makes me sad to see so few sumo sponsors these days. What does it take to be a sponsor? Other than money (the sumo faq I read said 60000 yen), are there rules about who can sponsor? Are there rules about what can be on a banner? I'm totally fascinated by the idea. Thanks!