<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto">If you can't see this without a subscription, i hope you can read the article, if not see the pics and adverts. I guess since they don't have Asashoryu to kick around anymore..........<div><div><div><br><div dir="ltr"><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><br></div></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div dir="ltr"><base href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/10/05/bad-boy-sumo-goes-head-to-head-japanese-establishment-race-row/"><style id="print">
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</style><title>'Bad boy' of Sumo does battle with Japanese establishment in race row</title><div class="original-url"><br><a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/10/05/bad-boy-sumo-goes-head-to-head-japanese-establishment-race-row/">https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/10/05/bad-boy-sumo-goes-head-to-head-japanese-establishment-race-row/</a><br><br></div><div id="article" role="article" style="-webkit-locale: "en"; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" class="system exported">
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<div class="page" style="text-align: start; word-wrap: break-word; max-width: 100%;"><h1 class="title" style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 1.95552em; line-height: 1.2141em; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; text-align: start; display: block; max-width: 100%;">'Bad boy' of Sumo does battle with Japanese establishment in race row</h1><h2 class="subhead" style="font-weight: normal; text-align: start; display: block; color: rgba(27, 27, 27, 0.65); font-size: 1.46664em; margin-top: -0.35em; line-height: 1.27275em; max-width: 100%;">Commentators say Hakuho - seen as the greatest wrestler of all time - is being treated differently because he was born outside Japan</h2><div class="metadata singleline" style="text-align: start; display: block; margin-bottom: 1.45em; margin-top: -0.7em; max-width: 100%;"><span itemscope="" itemtype="https://schema.org/Person" itemprop="author" class="byline" style="margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; font-size: 1em !important; font-weight: normal !important; font-style: normal !important; display: inline !important;"><a href="/authors/j/ju-jz/julian-ryall/" data-test="byline-link" rel="author" style="margin: 0px; color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline; font-size: 1em !important; font-weight: normal !important; font-style: normal !important; display: inline !important;">
<span style="margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; font-size: 1em !important; font-weight: normal !important; font-style: normal !important; display: inline !important;">By</span>
<span data-test="author-name" itemprop="name" content="Julian Ryall" style="margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; font-size: 1em !important; font-weight: normal !important; font-style: normal !important; display: inline !important;">Julian Ryall</span>
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<span itemprop="addressLocality" data-test="author-location" style="margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; font-size: 1em !important; font-weight: normal !important; font-style: normal !important; display: inline !important;">Tokyo</span>
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</span></span><span class="delimiter" style="margin: 0.07em 0.45em 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; font-size: 1em !important; font-weight: normal !important; font-style: normal !important; display: inline !important;"></span><time itemprop="datePublished" datetime="2021-10-05T15:32+0100" data-test="time" class="date" style="margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; font-size: 1em !important; font-weight: normal !important; font-style: normal !important; display: inline !important;">5 October 2021 • 3:32pm</time></div><figure itemscope="true" data-test="article-body-image" itemtype="https://schema.org/ImageObject" data-js="article-body-image" itemprop="image" style="max-width: 100%; font-size: 0.75em; line-height: 1.5em; font-family: -apple-system-font; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65); margin: 0px;">
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Sumo grand champion or 'yokozuna' Hakuho of Mongolia performs a ring-entering ceremony at Meiji shrine in Tokyo
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<p style="max-width: 100%;">He arrived in Japan from Mongolia at the age of 15 and became, by many measures, the most successful sumo wrestler of all time in a tradition stretching back more than a millennium.</p>
<p style="max-width: 100%;">Now<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/2019/03/26/story-hakuho-sho-skinny-kid-mongolia-became-greatest-sumo/" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;"> Hakuho Sho</a> is going head to head with a conservative Japanese establishment reluctant to let him open his own training “stable” in retirement - a controversy that has sparked a conversation around xenophobia in the national sport. </p>
<p style="max-width: 100%;">Hakuho, 36, retired from sumo last month after being plagued by persistent knee injuries. </p>
<p style="max-width: 100%;">Commentators compared the 6ft 4in star, who had a peak fighting weight of 348lb, to Pele in football or Michael Jordan in basketball, whose absence would leave a void at the centre of wrestling.</p>
<p style="max-width: 100%;">But along with his achievements - including 45 championship victories, the most wins in a calendar year, and being the longest serving top rank “yokozuna” wrestler of all time - he earned a reputation as a “bad boy” for his apparent breaches of etiquette in the ring.</p>
<p style="max-width: 100%;">Along with challenging referee calls, his style of fighting has come in for criticism. Some saw him simply as a rough-house wrestler who was not averse to slapping an opponent’s face and a move that came perilously close to a banned elbow strike. </p>
<p style="max-width: 100%;">Normally a retiring “yokozuna” would be granted permission to open a stable on retirement as a matter of course. However, the Japanese Sumo Association (JSA) seems to be doing all it can to avoid that outcome for Hakuho.</p>
<p style="max-width: 100%;">Leaks from the September 29 meeting of the six-man JSA panel that considers applications for wrestlers who wish to remain in the sport have found their way into the Japanese tabloids. </p>
<p style="max-width: 100%;">One JSA member expressed concern that Hakuho could look to build on his already close ties to <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/16/japan-grapples-sumo-scandal-veiled-underbelly-sacred-sport-exposed/" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">other Mongolian wrestlers</a> and elders to construct a “future power block” within the sport. </p>
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Hakuho speaks at a press conference to announce his retirement at Ryogoku Kokugikan Stadium in Tokyo
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<p style="max-width: 100%;">Others warned that Hakuho might bring the “bad boy” attitude from his fighting career into retirement.</p>
<p style="max-width: 100%;">The panel has recommended that Hakuho not be permitted to open his own stable for 10 years. One member was quoted as saying that Hakuho was “reaping what he sowed”. </p>
<p style="max-width: 100%;">While Hakuho has kept an unusually low profile and has not commented publicly on the matter, others have linked the reported decision to wider problems in the national sport.</p>
<p style="max-width: 100%;">“Hakuho certainly upset a lot of people when he was a wrestler and they are worried that he will do the same if he is allowed to run his own stable”, said Yoichi Igawa, a journalist who covers a sport that can trace its history back some 1,300 years. </p>
<p style="max-width: 100%;">“The sumo world is very exclusionary because its elders are deeply traditional and only want things to be done in the ‘Japanese way’,” he said. </p>
<p style="max-width: 100%;">“A wrestler’s nationality is a big issue, even if they have legally taken Japanese nationality, and there is all too often the sense that a foreigner is not able to understand all the traditions that surround the sport.”</p>
<p style="max-width: 100%;">“They will do everything they can to stop Hakuho gaining more influence in the sumo world, claiming that it is because of his disciplinary record”. </p>
<p style="max-width: 100%;">In an editorial, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper said: “There is nothing wrong about debating what ‘yokozuna’ should and should not do. But the problem is that many critics of Hakuho trace his ‘unsavoury’ behaviour to his Mongolian roots and question the qualities of foreign sumo wrestlers in general”. </p>
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</div></div></div><br><br><div dir="ltr">Sent from my iPad</div></div></blockquote></div></div></div></body></html>