National Sports Festival 2010 sumo competition

[Asashosakari 20,281]

The Kokutai sumo competitions took place this past Sunday to Tuesday, and the adult individual competition was won by Hidemasa Meigetsuin (Tokyo prefecture, Nihon Taiiku University), beating Akifumi Sakamoto (high school teacher from Oita prefecture) with tsukidashi in the finals. As this took place just today I haven't actually seen press reports or pictures yet and I'm just cribbing this directly from the results site. More to come surely in the next couple of days - I wonder if Meigetsuin is planning to go makushita tsukedashi next year?

Also straight from the wire: The adult team competition saw the Ishikawa team emerge victorious 2-1 over Kumamoto for the prefecture's first title.

[Asashosakari 20,281]

And the junior competitions which took place on Sunday and Monday, so I do have some press reports to go on for that: The individual title was earned by Masaomi Hasegawa 長谷川将臣(Aomori prefecture, Towada-shi Sanbongi Agricultural HS), winning against Takumi (?) Hashimoto 橋本拓実 (Niigata prefecture, Itoigawa-shi Marine HS) by shitatehineri.

In the team competition Saitama prefecture scored their fifth title and first in 6 years with a 4-1 finals victory over Niigata. As usual the 5-man Saitama team was staffed with Saitama Sakae HS students. 3rd-grade team captain Iwasaki lost in the second match, allowing Niigata to draw even, but a succession of 2nd-grade members then secured the victory. That bodes well for Saitama's chances to repeat next year, I imagine.

Teammates cheering when Takemasa scored the decisive third victory:

Saitama's Sawada winning in the fifth bout by uwatenage to make it 4-1:

Edited September 28, 2010 by Asashosakari

[Asashosakari 20,281]

I've finally found some time to start transcribing the results, and I'll start off with what may actually interest two or three people, the adult competitions.

First up, the team contest. Like last year I'll skip the prelims due to sheer volume and only list the results of the knockout rounds. You'll notice that Tokyo prefecture actually got to compete four times instead of the usual three - as there are 47 competing prefectural teams there's needs to be a fill-in team for every round, and Tokyo was lucky enough to draw one of these slots (they always go to a squad that went completely winless in their regular matchup). That was not only good news for the Tokyo team as they won that additional game - they would not have qualified with their regular record of 2-1 with 5 wins - but also for the two members who collected a win in that bonus matchup. But more on that in the next post. Here are the results:

Qualified prefectures:

(1)

[Asashosakari 20,281]

And the adult individual competition. This contest doesn't actually count for the overall National Games standings (which award points for high finishes in each participating sport), so it doesn't run its own prelims, instead using the results of the group prelims to decide the participants for the individual contest: only athletes who won their bout in all three prelims get to compete here. That's obviously even more of a crapshoot than normal collegiate tournaments which generally admit everybody to the finals who went 3-0 or 2-1, and like last year a whole bunch of well-known names didn't even make it. It's also reflected in the fact that this year's 28 qualifiers included only 5 who were already there last year, even though the overall field for the group competition was very similar.

And as mentioned in the group results posting, Tokyo's bonus game turned out to be crucial - both of their representatives managed to get into the individual contest with 3-1 personal records rather than the standard requirement of 3-0. And one of these rikishi just so happens to be the eventual winner, Nittaidai's Hidemasa Meigetsuin. Incidentally, Meigetsuin's prelim loss came at the hands of former All-Japan and World Champion Takashi Himeno - who himself didn't manage to qualify thanks to a loss against Ryo Ito. Tokyo's other qualifier Morishige had lost against Akifumi Sakamoto, who proceeded to beat him again here in the quarterfinals. Anyway, here are the participants, their affiliations and their results (I'm still clueless about Koichi Kato's current place of employment):

Arakizeki

[Yubinhaad 11,975]

Thanks for this! Do you happen to know the age range of the competitors in these competitions?

(I'm still clueless about Koichi Kato's current place of employment)

Kato

[Asashosakari 20,281]

Thanks for this! Do you happen to know the age range of the competitors in these competitions?

If I'm not mistaken, the junior competition age cutoff is "18 and under" (essentially, final year of high school), the adult competition is open to everybody else, you just need to be considered among the best three in your prefecture. Koichi Kato is in his late 30s now, IIRC.

[Sasanishiki 57]

(I'm still clueless about Koichi Kato's current place of employment)

Kato