Sasanishiki

An excellent day for all my adoptees, which makes a nice change from the last few. I'm a bit concerned to see Mizuguchi revert to hatakikomi wins (he's got a massively high percentage of wins this way) as he will find it harder to crack the higher levels of makushita when he returns to the division next basho.

Although Mizuguchi has won two of his bouts in Makushita this basho, he is in fact lead sandanme and so is in the sandanme yusho race. I'm hoping he will bounce back from his demotion and work his way up in the makushita ranks as he is one of my adoptees.

This looks like it should be a pro-wrestling match. Just watch out for Hakuho and any beef he might have with you!!

Left-handed?

藤の花 and 藤の海

Just to add an aside to this. When I clicked on a link to another thread last night, the new window opened and was in this outline mode. I wonder why it defaulted to this when the main window from which I was originally viewing remained in "standard" mode?

I've written about the tsukedashi status for Sumo Fan Magazine and there have been discussions here about it as well. The ms15td came in in 2001 for those that win one of the four select tournaments (and let's not forget the ms10 provision as well). Prior to that there was a much wider tsukedashi status available for performances of reaching the semifinals or last eight (or whatever) in a group of amateur tournaments. Tsukedashi at that time was at ms60, so I guess the thinking was being able to take in some quality amateur rikishi and see if they sink or swim, rather than the very elite and promoting them higher. A number came in this way in the 90s due to solid careers at college level, in particular Nichidai guys such as Hayateumi, Dejima and Kotomitsuki.

So, will that school be hoping that Masutoo rises up the ranks? Probably not if they can claim that Bulgaria neighbours Hungary. Why not put it on Kokkai's bouts or Tochinoshin's. Close enough, I mean, they are all white...Sheesh!

OK, I'm obviously not Mongolian, but I am known to sleuth a bit. Taking the katakana and looking for appropriately close versions online, feeding the resulting cyrillic into a converter and taking a bit of a stab, I believe a possible transliteration is: Lhagvasuren Altangerel

Thank you everyone! That Kiwi Katapult is now going to be my procrastination tool for teh next couple of weeks! I had a lovely day looking after my 8 month old daughter and then a family meal. Unfortunately the cold and cough that has been threatening over the last couple of days came to fruition last night and I've been holed up in bed for today. Still, at least it wasn't on my birthday!

Terai 寺井 Jasupakenesu Terai Arashio 177 103 11 - March - 1994 Kanagawa Amidst all the discussion of half-Japanese throughout this thread, have we missed out on this guy? Japanese surname but most definitely not a Japanese first name. Anyone got the lowdown?

SARS and the concelled World Champs were in 2003, not the 1990s. Nevermind, I'll go back under my rock.

I went in there for a milkshake once about 5 years ago. I was doing a big walk around Asakusabashi from where I was staying between Akihabara and Kanda stations. Nothing special from what I remember. It is about two blocks north of Asakusabashi station, on the main road. I think the subway station is around there as well. Strange how the memory is jogged when you mention something as simple as McDonald's in Asakusabashi!

I couldn't access the article through the link given, nor through the link on the Times Online when I did a search. Do they remove them that quickly? Anyway, for those unable to get to the article, here is a snippet from the Times' Comment column

1. Nihon University 2. Nihon Taiiku University 3. Tokyo Nougyou (Agricultural) University 4. Chuo University 5. Takushoku University 6. Meiji University* 7. Toyo University 8. Komazawa University * Nagoya University is also known as Meidai but is not a sumo powerhouse, and I'm presuming the characters in the article were 明大 (Meiji) not 名大 (Nagoya)

I've just had look at a couple of these videos and what I noticed was the 'interesting' tachiai in a couple of matches. Georgiev looks clearly hampered by the knee injury for which he is wearing the brace. he is unable to bend his knee and has done well to reach the final if he started the tournament with such an injury. However, the Ukrainian female lightweight Trosiuk has the worst tachiai I have ever seen from a woman. With some of the heavier guys I can understand how they do not have the flexibility to get low. I can even understand some of the athletes who come from American football having a very high stance. I really do not understand her stance, except that she was not prepared to move forward and wanted to turn it into an upper-body wrestling-type match. I don't often have a lot of time for her compatriot Alina Boykova's delaying tactics at the tachiai, but at least Alina gets right down and starts 'properly'.

Most probably he is in their bad graces anyway for allowing his deshi to partake in drugs...It would be very interesing to be a fly on the wall in the Kyokai at the moment. I liken the Kyokai to the LDP - one group ostensibly, but with different factions and rivalries looking to gain ascendency and control, all the while having to manage the rivalries so that the entire body does not fall apart and lose public confidence. Does anyone know of any previous rivalries or problems between Ootake and Tomozuna/Isenoumi?

One way to go would be to stay in Ryogoku, right near the sumo, and soak up what is going on around there. It is accessible by train from the airport (with one change at Kinshicho to go one stop to Ryogoku, or you could grab a cab if you have the hotel address written down) and accessible by train (again, a couple of changes needed but if you already have your bullet train tickets then it wouldn't cost anything as travel to get to Tokyo station is included when using a bullet train ticket on the same day and travelling from within Tokyo's boundaries) or a not too terrible cab ride. Locals would be able to tell you more about around Tokyo station, etc, but there is a thread with information about Ryogokua and some of its hotels here

I take it that the nuance of Tomozuna's statement is that Ootake should have brought this matter up earlier within the kyokai, instead of dumping it on them in his testimony, rather than that Ootake should not have said anything in his testimony.

Am I right in thinking it's been mentioned before that he has an underlying health condition that causes him to be so heavy? (ie., he's unwell and it causes him to be heavy rather than being unwell because he is heavy.) In that case, the legs may be due to that health issue.

Sumo has been used a fair bit in political cartoons because it is a good way to show size/dominance/strength/disparity between competitors. I've seen it used in some Japanese political cartoons from the 1940s/50s (from memory) and also in foreign political cartoons, where it is usually used to represent Japan in some sort of competition with others (or, in this case, internally).

Undoubtedly, and it is further emphasised by the name having 'seki' written in hiragana and 'tori' in katakana. I like the concept as a way to introduce children to sumo. I think having a scrawny chick is not such a bad idea because it shows small kids that even they could end up as sumotori.

I'm sure that was what Nishi was driving at. Do you have an Irish passport? If so, it might be easier than you think to represent Ireland as the IFS takes nationality for international competitions on the basis of which passport you hold (and presumbaly which country you choose if you have more than one passport).

While I agreet oan extent, I think the fact that Paczkow won the open weight is interesting in this regard. I haven't seen him in 3 years so he might have gotten a lot heavier, but I always pictured him as being a solid but slightly smaller athlete. His skill is fantastic and more than makes up for being a bit lighter than some of his competitors, but I would consider him a 'heavyweight' rather than a 'super-heavyweight' using your categories. Has this changed? I've always thought the next appropriate weightclass should actually be a split of the men's middleweight into under-100kg and under-115kg. This would make the two divisions realy competitive as the lighter middleweights would not need to put on extra weight to be able to hold their own with the lighter heavyweights who drop to get under weight. A split into heavyweight (under 145kg) and super-heavyweight, for want of better terms, would still see the open weight turn into an afterthought. I doubt the open weight is ever going to go because it is the essence of (professional) sumo and Japanese martial arts - skill vs skill, regardless of size.

Winning that is no mean feat. Was the Hungarian World Games champ there, I wonder? Also surprised to see that Nachyn Mongush (RUS) was not among the medals.