Asashoryu taking Steriods!?!?!?

[Jesinofuji]

Irrelevant. It would make almost no difference in his sumo. Asashoryu is a rikishi who uses his superior technique to defeat his opponents, not brute strenght. Steriods have no effect on technique.

When asked why he thought Asashoryu was the best, Akebono replied: He practices as hard as he performs buring the basho. He is the one who trains the hardest.

Any of the lower rikishi who say they think he uses steriods are just jealous of his ability. His weight gain is typical of a rikishi of his age.

I don't think he uses steriods, and don't think it really would be any different if he did.

JNF

[Doitsuyama]

Irrelevant. It would make almost no difference in his sumo. Asashoryu is a rikishi who uses his superior technique to defeat his opponents, not brute strenght. Steriods have no effect on technique.

When asked why he thought Asashoryu was the best, Akebono replied: He practices as hard as he performs buring the basho. He is the one who trains the hardest.

Any of the lower rikishi who say they think he uses steriods are just jealous of his ability. His weight gain is typical of a rikishi of his age.

I don't think he uses steriods, and don't think it really would be any different if he did.

JNF

He is using superior strength in combination with superior technique. If you really think it is only his technique, the I dare say you are wrong. His weight gain is quite a bit more than "typical". At an age of 20 he was 106 kg, with 23 he was 140 kg. Especially big was the weight gain from 2000 to 2001, from 106 kg to 128 kg. I'm not really believing in steroids but I'd noticed that without turning a hair.

[Jesinofuji]

his technique surpasses that of all other rikishi. You cannot say that about his strenght. Yet he is the Yokozuna, he continues to beat even the much larger rikishi whose strenght surpasses even his own. Most rikishi do gain weight as they get older. Asashoryu is still light for a typical makuuchi rikishi of his height. So I don't think his weight gain is at all abnormaly fast.

[Zuikakuyama]

I think there is little doubt that he is extremely strong for his size. Just look at the body slams he did to Mickey and Hokutoriki, and to robocop in practice.

[QttP]

Irrelevant. It would make almost no difference in his sumo. Asashoryu is a rikishi who uses his superior technique to defeat his opponents, not brute strenght. Steriods have no effect on technique.....

This topic was irrelevant.

[MongolPower]

If taking steriods is not prohibited by written rule in sumo why not? Let every rikishi take and experiment with steriods if it is helping them with their sumo. Certain people seem to believe it is helping with Asa's sumo. I will recommend for Chiotaikai and Kaio to improve their chances for yokozuna.

[Yoavoshimaru]

And I also disagree that steroids don't affect technique. By steroids I include a broad class of performance-enhancing drugs, not just anabolics, and there are many that affect fast-twitch muscles (think of all the sprinters who take them), flexibility, pain threshold, all of which are "useful" and would give a rikishi an unfair advantage.

[Jesinofuji]

I guess Kotoryu and the guy in Yoavoshimaru's avatar must have taken steriods too as they are known for lifting other rikishi. Can taking drugs teach someone how to get a good Morozashi grip? Or teach someone to execute a good shitatenage? I think not. Training however can. As Asashoryu is the hardest trainer, one would expect him to have as much strength and skill as he does without steriods.

[Zuikakuyama]

I guess Kotoryu and the guy in Yoavoshimaru's avatar must have taken steriods too as they are known for lifting other rikishi. Can taking drugs teach someone how to get a good Morozashi grip? Or teach someone to execute a good shitatenage? I think not. Training however can. As Asashoryu is the hardest trainer, one would expect him to have as much strength and skill as he does without steriods.

I am not saying that Asashoryu takes steroids or anything similar. And there is absolutely no hard evidence showing that he did, so I wont even speculate on that.

But I have to disagree with your statement. Yes. Taking steriods wont teach you how to do a morozashi grip, but that is really not the point. Steroids give you that extra physical ability to execute the techniques you learn-- better and faster. And oftentimes at the top of any sport where everyone are essentially equally talented, that little extra edge is what sets the winners and the losers apart.

Take these examples. Baseball is essentially a game of skill. Taking steroids won't teach baseball players like Barry Bonds how to hit better or have better sense of judging an incoming baseball, but it sure will make him have more strength and be faster. That is why some baseball players are known to take steroids. The same goes with American Football players or basketball players.

By the same token, I think many Olympic wrestlers (the closest sport to sumo) wont hesitate to take steroids if they can be guaranteed not to be caught. So they must be taking it for a reason, right?

[Xris]

I'll would be very much surprised if there were not *many* sumotori that are taking steroids. If only that, I think the attitude of the Kyokai suspicious. They probably know that a lot of things happen in the background and they don't want to dig in too deep. It remains me of cyclism (esp. in France) where everybody in the sport knew that drugs were taken by nearly every one, but nothing was really proven until the time that they was an inquiry from people outside cyclism (the police because drug selling is not legal).

And, I don't think that if someone is taking steroids (and it works), other people will not follow. Sumotori are not naive, thank you, and quite normal people. Some are probably very honest, but some are probably less scrupulous.

So I don't think Asashoryu has an unfair advantage. He is just better, that's it.

Speaking of Asashoryu, he has gained only a dozen kilos since 2001 and in the meantime he has become a great yokozuna. So strengh it may be, but gaining 12 ou 15 kilos in two years is not what explains his results. Look at Wakanosato. What he did to Shimotori this basho was creazy. It was not a short lift. It was not even a grip on the mawashi. And he just walked a few meters with 150 kg moving and jumping as hell! Now what are the results of Wakanosato?

What impresses me the most with Asashoryu is that he keeps getting better and better, using new ways to deal with his opponents. My feelings is that's what makes a true champ.

[Guest Mojo]

I think there is little doubt that he is extremely strong for his size. Just look at the body slams he did to Mickey and Hokutoriki, and to robocop in practice.

robocop?!?!?! :-) what a sad Shikona!!!

[Guest TSoLmoN]

dont they test everybody before or regularly for any drug use? and was there any article about asa taking steroids?

[Guest TSoLmoN]

well i am a big fun of Asa and he is my countryman. i dont agree with the point that drug and sport should go together. sport is about ones power, skill and mental stregnth. sport is how far man can go up without any help of drugs and (money). if athletes start to use drugs, some of them are going beyond human potentials, that would make it unfair to ones who is not using drugs. if Asa is using drugs my respect for Asa would be bit less that before, and i am praying he is not using anything. :-)

[QttP]

i dont agree with the point that drug and sport should go together. sport is about ones power, skill and mental stregnth. sport is how far man can go up without any help of drugs and (money). if athletes start to use drugs, some of them are going beyond human potentials, that would make it unfair to ones who is not using drugs.

And if a certain athlete or the organization which sponsors him has enough money to hire a good personal trainer and buy good training equipment, doesn't it make it unfair to other athletes who can't afford such "luxuries"? You mentioned money in brackets in your post, but we all know that money makes a lot of difference sometimes, and it cannot be banned.

There are so many factors in sports, beyond pure skill, strength and mental focus, that can give an athelete or a team advantage (in some cases unfairly). Drugs is just one of them. That's why I don't agree with the "Drugs are THE evil in sports" attitude.

[Kaikitsune Makoto]

What strikes me in this doping discussion is that often huge majority of people have really no idea of what steroids do, whether they work, how they work, what is their significance in skill sports which have strength basis. This is not to belittle the views of laymen in this but when people whose understanding of doping-related substances and usage is very limited start to explain their standpoints like "Steroids wouldn't make a big difference in X-rikishi's sumo" without any real grounds, then to me it is a very clear "I hope it doesn't so I'll say I think it doesn't". And where does this "The benefits from doping are not so clear, they may not help at all" come from? I can't see any factor that would even remotely support that kind of statement. Only comment I can understand is that "hormones won't improve your skill" but if you have tremendous skill already, what do you need to improve? Power. The more power you have, the better you can utilize your skills. In sumo you just have to balance with not losing speed when growing bigger if speed is your ace.

My views are not better than any of the members' here who haven't gotten familiar with this area and who haven't had the interest in finding out and learning the physiology of hormone use (or any other substance like beta-blockers in shooting) but I have seen this world close and have studied a lot about this, have heard the inside stories of doping usage from reliable sources (reliable to me and I have no reason to be one of those "doping is everywhere! everyone uses! look at that shotputter! I wonder how much juice is in him! Horrible!" people who see doping everywhere in sports). And since the physiological basis of many hormones favours so strongly their usage in sumo and since I believe hormones are very widely used in professional sports, it is quite nai'ive in my opinion to think rikishi are different in this and would say "I won't use drugs because it is against my principles".

There is public sport image and then there is the hidden reality. We all have our own values judging our attitude towards various hidden reality schemes. Some don't accept doping use, some loath the idea of any organized yaocho etc. Doping to me was a big troll some years ago and believed innocently that even professional bodybuiders can be naturally trained (view that now is totally impossible). The more I learned about this, the more I saw and above all, the more I let myself to see the facts and weigh them objectively, the more I had to realize that my rosy picture was shattering into pieces day by day. Therefor I have no shield against this anymore. I dare to say understanding too much of this has made it very hard to able to fool myself anymore. On the other hand with yaocho I am as unaware as anyone so I have no grounds to believe in wide spread yaocho and even if that would be proven, that would never make me accept it as that violates mostly towards the "rights" of fans whereas doping is a tool for the rikishi. Everyone of us understands the definition of "fixed bout" and most automatically frowns upon that in a sport where it is not part of the whole idea (like in show wresling it is) but many people don't really understand the definition of "doping" and hence judging it is not so well-founded and judging may be much less so if they know the significance of doping in individual level and that it is an additional tool, not a replacement of hard work. If fire needs oxygen and material to burn, that is hard keiko, if you have some accelerant in the fire, that is doping. Lovely metaphor :-)

Any makuuchi rikishi can afford doping usage. It is not that expensive at all (a bit different to use dianabol than be a client in a laboratory which makes synthetic hormone that wouldn't show in doping tests) so money doesn't pay a big role in this.

One thing is that athletes always belittle this. It is their world after all. Amateur rikishi's comment on ML that "rikishi's life style makes it difficult to use these substances" is one of those that really has no grounds of whatsoever and he would never make such comment in the presence of for example sport doctors as they would consider it so ridiculous comment. There are interesting "statistics" derived from questionnaire like 5% of professional American football players have used drugs of some kind to improve their performance. If that 5% would be even close to truth, doping wouldn't be a problem of any kind as those 5% would definitely be without significant benefits in the footballers' group as if they would be on top of the game, most would use too to close the gap and be on top of the game too.

If professional sports has such integrity and strength of principles that it beats the massive will to succeed many pros have, then I bow deeply and honour their conviction as an exemplary sign of true strength of character and consider them as the best idols of mankind.

One thing that is remarkably unanimous amongst users. One of the main benefits from hormones is the fact that body goes into anabolic state fast and recovery from training is clearly faster than without hormones. This leads to very simple equation: You can train harder with hormones without nearly as big risk of overtraining than without hormones.

Don't want to make enemies with my doping views here. Never claimed my views are correct and I am not a real expert in this area. Yet this world is of great interest to me and wish to be able to learn more and understand more about this world. I am not pro-doping but can't judge it the same way as I did before. Hypocrazy irritates me the most in this but I guess that is the same for everybody. Doping athlete's stamp is very strong in modern sports so no wonder caught athletes swear for gods and mothers' graves they never used anything despite having had 1000 times more than normal dose of some substance in urine.

Conspiracies or lies.

[Kintamayama]

As someone who has absolutely no idea about doping and stuff, this was a very interesting read, which made me stop and think about this. I agree that a user will have an advantage, no matter how you look at it, against a non-user. OTOH, if it's not illegal (Sumo), I can treat it like henka, or not.. I can secretly disrespect the user, but on the whole, I don't think it would matter that much to me. If it's legal, then it's part of the sport-large part, small part, middle part, but a part, just like henka..

[Yubiquitoyama]

I agree with Kintamayama in that I have no idea about doping regarding the extent of usage, and

Edited April 3, 2004 by Yubiquitoyama

[Mark Buckton]

No experience and little knowledge of this but would say that the pure intensity and variation of training moves Shoryu does in training compared to other sekitori and rikishi is phenomenal.

He is never standing still unlike some of the others. And if he is still(ish), he is twisting his arms around the body of Sekiryu & others in trying to 'design' some new escape from grip or way into the same.

His youth is his steroid I feel and his not having been brought up within the strict confines of sumo his driving force.

[bennyloh]

(I am not worthy...)

His "left-handed" advantage is his steroid, while he is so used to the other right-handers he puts in more effort to frustrate them. His skills acquired through hardwork makes him a faster thinker an edge over his opponents most of the time.The weight gain is minimal, what is 13kg ove a two-year period. A smoker upon quitting can easily put on that kind of weight in three months!

[Yubiquitoyama]

(I am not worthy...)

His "left-handed" advantage is his steroid, while he is so used to the other right-handers he puts in more effort to frustrate them. His skills acquired through hardwork makes him a faster thinker an edge over his opponents most of the time.The weight gain is minimal, what is 13kg ove a two-year period. A smoker upon quitting can easily put on that kind of weight in three months!

As far as I understand, putting on 13 kg in two years is quite a lot, when it's not fat. Anyway, I am rather sure, whatever others would tell me, that there are very few strong arguments one way or the other. Everything can be explained away by either side, but the issue remains in the middle: Either Asashoryu has/does use steroids or he hasn't/doesn't. We will never know. Especially since there is little doubt Asashoryu DOES have the talent, the technique and the zeal needed to make a great rikishi, and that he would have all those things, with or without drugs.

Edited April 14, 2004 by Yubiquitoyama

[bennyloh]

I guess Kotoryu and the guy in Yoavoshimaru's avatar must have taken steriods too as they are known for lifting other rikishi.

Edited April 14, 2004 by bennyloh

[Kaikitsune Makoto]

If steroid-taking gives more strength and speed (muscle-twitching too fast) this is certainly not an advantage at all, it can also louse up the timing and foil an attempt to throw successfully. Right timing is attained through experience ...will steroid-taking be disruptive?

Never heard that one before (I am not worthy...)

Well I think it is safe to say that innervation of muscles doesn't change significantly with steroid usage. Timing comes from skill and spinal cord reacting to events in the bout. To say that fastly gained power and speed would mess this up, is rather peculiar idea. Muscles are just a tool for skill, not a source of skill.

Strength is not the most important as often a smaller size can beat a very huge player.

Nope but that is between individuals and not between a single rikishi before strenght gain and after strength gain. There you have different equation. I have no doubt Mainoumi would have beaten Konishiki as well as he did even if Konishiki would have had 30kg of more muscles for example

Edited April 14, 2004 by Kaikitsune Makoto

[bennyloh]

If steroid-taking gives more strength and speed (muscle-twitching too fast) this is certainly not an advantage at all, it can also louse up the timing and foil an attempt to throw successfully. Right timing is attained through experience ...will steroid-taking be disruptive?

Never heard that one before (I am not worthy...)

Well I think it is safe to say that innervation of muscles doesn't change significantly with steroid usage. Timing comes from skill and spinal cord reacting to events in the bout. To say that fastly gained power and speed would mess this up, is rather peculiar idea. Muscles are just a tool for skill, not a source of skill.

Strength is not the most important as often a smaller size can beat a very huge player.

Nope but that is between individuals and not between a single rikishi before strenght gain and after strength gain. There you have different equation. I have no doubt Mainoumi would have beaten Konishiki as well as he did even if Konishiki would have had 30kg of more muscles for example

Perhabs I didn't explain well enough, let me attempt... firstly I am referring to counter attacks/throws.( I have just edited after you). Assuming most of the time I can fell someone attacking me on my left instantly by coordinating my left foot block with my left hand pull towards my left thus throwing him to my left but I can't do a throw if the attack is on my right, being a right-hander I know my right hand is stronger and faster. In the former my timing is just perfect, I don't really require the extra speed or strength to perform that ( It will only louse that up).

Edited April 14, 2004 by bennyloh

[Guest Hidenohana]

Perhabs I didn't explain well enough, let me attempt... firstly I am referring to counter attacks/throws.( I have just edited after you). Assuming most of the time I can fell someone attacking me on my left instantly by coordinating my left foot block with my left hand pull towards my left thus throwing him to my left but I can't do a throw if the attack is on my right, being a right-hander I know my right hand is stronger and faster. In the former my timing is just perfect, I don't really require the extra speed or strength to perform that ( It will only louse that up).

HI. :-P I suppose there is an element of truth in what you say. The athlete has to review technique during his career as it may be affected by changes in flexibily,strength and speed.The changes to the body due to steroid use coupled with weight training may lead to an over-reliance on muscular strength, at the expence of good technique.However a systematic steroid-strength training programme specific to the sport,coupled with attention to technique,would no doubt have a benficial effect on a rikishi's performance.

Secondly, increased power and strength allows a proficient rikishi to physically execute a more extensive repertoire of techniques on the dohyo.(eg throws,pushes,tsuppari,counters etc)

Reaction times and speed are more genetically determined but even here anabolic steroids can help..

Lastly , I find it inconceivable that the sort of muscular hypertrophy that we see in present in some modern day reikishi,as opposed to rikishi say thirty years or more ago, is possible without chemical enhancement coupled with months of hard work in the gym.

To put it simply, a man can't come to sumo with too much strength, speed and aggression.Steroids help on all three counts.

[ilovesumo]

Many Steroids let HAIR Grow......There are a few very HAIRY guys...

SORRY,BAD ENGLISH :'-(