8/20/2023 0 Comments Are sumo wrestlers healthyAnd the same goes for Mikhakhanov, he said. The best hope, he told DW, is for young wrestlers to understand that responsibility for their well-being lies with themselves. John Gunning, who reports on sumo wrestling for The Japan Times newspaper, said the death of Shobushi last year triggered a realization within the JSA that it needs to introduce measures to protect wrestlers' health, although the implementation of any revelations will be left up to individual stable masters. The heavyweight had reached the rank of "maegashira" before retiring in the spring of 1999, did not miss a single match over a 19-year career, and participated in 1,316 fights.Īfter retiring, he served as a coach at a stable but left the Japan Sumo Association (JSA) in 2002.Ī spokesman for the JSA declined to comment on the nature of Toyonoumi's illness, but he did confirm that he had been suffering from several medical issues before his death. Toyonoumi, who weighed more than 200 kilograms and fought in 30 tournaments in the sport's top makuuchi division, died from an unspecified illness at the age of 56. Most recently, on November 20, another former heavyweight of the ring died young. Maeta, 38, had weighed more than 200 kilograms for the majority of his sumo career, despite only being 180 centimeters (5 feet, 4 inches) tall. In August last year, a retired wrestler known as Maeta, collapsed and died after suffering a heart attack as he was teaching sumo moves to a group of school children. His calls for wrestlers to take care of their health appear to have been in vain, however, with two more deaths since Omori's. While he once reveled in being known as the heaviest wrestler in the history of the sport, 1.9-meter tall Mikhakhanov has now returned to his hometown of Zaigrayevo, in Siberia, and is using social media to document his efforts to shed the weight that he gained while wrestling in Japan. He also called on other wrestlers to "place their own health ahead of everything else." "It is true that you cannot do training unless you eat, but there is no sense in ending up ill," Mikhakhanov said, adding that he had been deeply saddened by his colleague's death. Similarly, today's wrestlers today have an average body mass index (BMI) of more than 47, even though a BMI of 25 is considered a sign of being overweight. The suggestion that wrestlers are being encouraged to bulk up even more than usual to be successful is supported by statistics which show that the average weight of a wrestler today is around 160 kilograms, an increase of 15 kilograms from 30 years ago. "Nobody in your sumo stable cares about you." "But you are the only person who can take care of you," he said. In an interview with The Asahi Shimbun newspaper, Mikhakhanov said: "It's never easy to stay healthy as long as you are living the life of a sumo wrestler." Mikhakhanov had tipped the scales at 292.6 kilograms (645 pounds) at his peak weight. Following Omori's death, Anatoly Mikhakhanov, a Russian-born wrestler, who fought under the name Orora and was the heaviest wrestler in the history of Japan's national sport, warned last year that wrestlers were risking their health in search of victory on the sport's sacred dohyo, or raised ring.
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