Sumo moves for big break in global sports scene
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-10-12 11:21

Typical 15-day sumo tournaments can make five-day test cricket matches seem like a 100-yard dash by comparison.

A sumo wrestler throws ceremonial salt during the Grand Sumo Las Vegas tournament at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada October 9, 2005. [Reuters]

Sumo's current elite "rikishi" include 58 from outside Japan, including 35 from Mongolia, six from China, five Russians, a half dozen from Eastern Europe and two each from Tonga, South Korea and Brazil.

Asashoryu, whose real name is Dolgorsuren Dagvadorj, is only the third grand champion or "Yokozuna" from outside Japan, following Samoa's Musashimaru and American Chad Rowan, a Hawaiian known in sumo circles as Akebono.

Yokozuna can never be demoted but they are expected to retire when their results no longer equal their superior status. Only 68 "rikishi" have become Yokozuna in the 300-year history of the title.

Among interested spectators here was Dan Kalbfleisch, a US Sumo official who hopes the visit might spark amateur-level sumo and a US mainland success story to match Akebono and Konishiki, huge Hawaiians recruited into sumo stardom.

"We're hoping to get more people interested in sumo," he said. "We're trying to increase awareness and support."