Primary School Banzuke 2019 - Grade 4

[mikawa 1,794]

It's now become tradition here in the Amasumo Section to look back over the past year of amateur sumo action at 2 different points of the year - Mikawa's Amateur Sumo Awards at the end of each year, and the Amateur Sumo Banzuke series in March/April.

Over the next few weeks, we'll be looking back to see who has been the most successful wrestlers in amateur sumo in Japan, starting with the primary school banzukes and culminating with the university banzuke. These lists are produced by adding up how well each wrestler did in national level tournaments over the past year, with the Top 32 included in the banzuke.

This banzuke takes into account the following tournaments:

• 35th Wanpaku National Championships
• 32nd National Primary School Championships
• 10th Hakuho Cup

 

East Yokozuna - Nakamura Hayato (中村 颯斗), Shizuoka
West Yokozuna - Kai Yota (甲斐 陽太), Miyazaki

East Ozeki - Sato Iroha (佐藤 珀呂汎), Kumamoto
West Ozeki - Odaira Maki (大平 真輝), Niigata

East Sekiwake - Uno Kyosei (宇野 恭晟), Ishikawa
West Sekiwake - Tsubaki Rui (椿 留一), Niigata

East Komusubi - Yamaguchi Ryojiro (山口 凌次郎), Okayama
West Komusubi - Ganbaatar Dorjtseren (ガンバータル ドルジツェレン), Mongolia

East Maegashira 1 - Hayase Shunta (早瀬 駿太), Kagoshima
West Maegashira 1 - Onodera Shion (小野寺 汐音), Iwate

East Maegashira 2 - Kanazawa Towa (金澤 永和), Chiba
West Maegashira 2 - Suekawa Atsuki (末川 敦喜), Tokyo

East Maegashira 3 - Yasui Reiya (安井 礼也), Ishikawa
West Maegashira 3 - Matsumoto Sota (松本 崇汰), Ehime

East Maegashira 4 - Nagai Hiito (永井 陽翔), Yamagata
West Maegashira 4 - Miura Seiyu (三浦 惺侑), Aomori

East Maegashira 5 - Ota Keisuke (太田 圭亮), Aichi
West Maegashira 5 - Yamada Toji (山田 透史), Aichi

East Maegashira 6 - Yamanobe Reiya (山野邉 玲優), Ibaraki
West Maegashira 6 - Iwaki Toa (岩木 闘空), Aichi

East Maegashira 7 - Hosoi Aoshi (細井 蒼孜), Saitama
West Maegashira 7 - Klinmee Koki (クリンミー 光輝), Miyagi

East Maegashira 8 - Miyoshi Kosei (三好 幸晟), Osaka
West Maegashira 8 - Uchima Haruma (内間 悠天), Okinawa

East Maegashira 9 - Okita Junya (大北 純也), Oita
West Maegashira 9 - Terao Genta (寺尾 彦太), Kanagawa

East Maegashira 10 - Iwamoto Takeshi (岩本 岳士), Hyogo
West Maegashira 10 - Toda Hayato (戸田 勇翔), Kumamoto

East Maegashira 11 - Kimura Noa (木村 望愛), Hokkaido
West Maegashira 11 - Kawamoto Masaya (河本 優也), Tottori

East Maegashira 12 - Izumi Yuma (泉 優真), Saga
West Maegashira 12 - Maki Yozan (牧 鷹山), Tokyo

  

Sanyaku Photos

East Yokozuna - Nakamura Hayato (中村 颯斗), Shizuoka

 

West Yokozuna - Kai Yota (甲斐 陽太), Miyazaki

 

East Ozeki - Sato Iroha (佐藤 珀呂汎), Kumamoto



 

West Ozeki - Odaira Maki (大平 真輝), Niigata

 

East Sekiwake - Uno Kyosei (宇野 恭晟), Ishikawa



 

West Sekiwake - Tsubaki Rui (椿 留一), Niigata



 

East Komusubi - Yamaguchi Ryojiro (山口 凌次郎), Okayama

 

West Komusubi - Ganbaatar Dorjtseren (ガンバータル ドルジツェレン), Mongolia

[mikawa 1,794]

Comments

2019 was the year when we finally have English coverage of amateur sumo tournaments on YouTube, with Chris Gould posting videos of the All Japan Amateur Championships, the 9th and 10th Hakuho Cups, and even a regional tournament in Kashiwa. It's definitely a start!

For most of the past year, the race for East Yokozuna seemed to be between two boys in particular - Shizuoka's Nakamura Hayato and Niigata's Tsubaki Rui. In fact, they contested both of the national finals in 2019, with one win apiece. What decided it was the 10th Hakuho Cup last month, when Primary School Yokozuna Hayato reached the quarter-finals, but Wanpaku Yokozuna Rui couldn't get that far.

Nakamura Hayato, hailing from the powerhouse sumo club that's Yaizu, is very good at countering his opponent's moves and also at creating opportunities in his bouts. Believe it or not, in his first ever bout at the Wanpaku Tournament, against an opponent whom he could have just pushed out of the ring, young Hayato actually pulled off a komatasukui. Who needs frontal force out when you can just execute an over thigh scooping body drop!

His club-mates certainly have many great things to say about him in the short video below. His only weakness? Not as much power as some of his main rivals.

 

East Ozeki Sato Iroha is the latest in a long line of talented rikishi from Kumamoto's Uto Junior Sumo Club. He beat Kanazawa Towa in one of the bouts of the tournaments on his way to winning the Hakuho Cup in 2019, and a quarter-final finish helped Kumamoto to the team title at the Wanpaku Tournament. Iroha might not be as big as many of his opponents, but a strong fighting spirit and good technical ability meant that he's always one of the last wrestlers standing in a tournament.

 

Mongolian kid Ganbaatar Dorjtseren isn't quite the phenom that his compatriot Altangerel Sosorkhuu was for the past few years, but to be amongst the sanyaku ranks on this banzuke, having only been part of 2 of the 3 tournaments, really shows that him and sumo go together. However, truth be told, Dorjtseren isn't as skilled as someone you'd expect coming from the land that's produced the likes of Hakuho and Asashoryu, but he's only 10 years old, so there's still a long way to go.

 

Skills wise, the pinnacle of this year group is three wrestlers - the aforementioned Nakamura Hayato, along with Chiba's Kanazawa Towa and Tokyo's Suekawa Atsuki. Towa comes from a wrestling background, the same as his older brothers Riku and Sora, so most of his bouts inevitably involve various kinds of throwing moves. To think, he wouldn't even be doing sumo if it wasn't for the TV series Kinboshi Sumo Club, itself a direct result of Kotoshogiku winning that Yusho four years ago. And now, he is one of the best sumo wrestlers for his age in the entire country.

 

The equally skilled Suekawa Atsuki is thin for a sumo wrestler. When you see his stature, you would think that he might be somewhat good at sumo, but "somewhat good" would be a huge understatement. Simply being part of Komatsuryu A, last year's national club champions, says a lot about how good he is, because of just how many kids in his club who are competing for places on their first team. His position on the team won't be in danger any time soon, since Atsuki is very very good. He's even able to pull off something like this:

 

Edited March 26, 2020 by mikawa

[mikawa 1,794]

This week on learning sumo's kimarite from a 10 year old......

Here's that legendary komatasukui (小股掬い) I was talking about earlier. It's translated as "over thigh scooping body drop", its description is "A kimarite in which the attacker attempts to throw his opponent and, when the opponent steps forward to defend himself, the attacker grabs his leg, near the thigh, and pulls upward driving the opponent over backwards".

Even the announcers had to pause and think hard before they recalled this kimarite. Kudos to them for remembering such a rare technique!