Kotoshogiku Really Made It - Grand Sumo Tourney

You'll have two Sumo news in rapid succession as both deserve national, if not global, attention. Global because the former French President Jacques René Chirac pays his way to fly to Japan just to have his favorite fun of watching Sumo at the Kokugikan firsthand. 

Kotoshogiku won the tournament with an impressive record of 14 wins and 1 loss for the first time by a Japanese-born rikishi (wrestler) in 10 years. It was a great feat because 10 years mean 60 tournaments and that not a Japanese-born had won any of them. It's like the Dodgers loosing 60 straight games against the NY Yankees, not that anyone is better than the other.

After all, Grand Sumo is a national sport and Japan is, as it were, its home ground. One year Konishiki came, Akebono arrived and Musashimaru joined Grand Sumo to write a new set of rules by the law of the survival of the fittest.

Hawaiians gone; came Europeans, and Mongolians. Probably because we share the blue spots with them, Mongolians were welcome along with their art and tradition of Sumo. It so turned their art of Sumo proved formidable to the point of overpowering our own. 

True, the Mongolians rikishis are wrestling by the Japanese rules and their own art of Sumo has little chance of manifesting in match-by-match situations. That means it's a matter of physical agility and born potential or both.

That said, Grand Sumo now offers a fresh attraction for a few tournaments ahead - how other Japanese rikishis are motivated to follow in the wake of Kotoshougiku to boost the Japanese art and tradition of Sumo.

An apology:While writing in the last episode how Koto had managed to oust his toughest rival Grand Champion Hakuho in what we now recall "the match of the tourney", this desk pointed out that his "upcoming" match with Harumafuji would be most decisive, unaware that the "upcoming decisive match" had been had and won by Kotoshougiku the previous day!