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Wrestler Harumafuji retires over assault
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Sumo grand champion Harumafuji announced he would retire to take responsibility for injuring a junior wrestler in an incident that has threatened to taint the image of Japan’s national sport just as it was regaining popularity.
The 33-year-old Mongolian-born “yokozuna” (grand champion) had already apologized earlier this month after media reported he had beaten junior wrestler Takanoiwa while drinking at a restaurant-bar with other wrestlers.
“As yokozuna I feel responsible for injuring Takanoiwa and so will retire from today,” a stern-faced Harumafuji told a news conference, carried live by several Japanese broadcasters, in Fukuoka, site of the most recent tournament.
“I apologize from my heart to the people, sumo fans, the Japan Sumo Association, to supporters of my ‘stable’ (gym) and my ‘oyakata’ (coach) and his wife for causing such trouble.”
Harumafuji gave no details of the incident — still under investigation by police — which media reports said occurred when he got angry because the younger wrestler was checking his smartphone after being chastised for a bad attitude.
Takanoiwa, 27, did not take part in the latest tournament due to his injuries, which the sumo association said included a fractured skull and concussion.
“I think it is my duty as a senior wrestler to correct and teach junior wrestlers when they are lacking in manners and civility,” Harumafuji said yesterday. “But I went too far,” adding that the commotion was not alcohol-fueled.
The incident has highlighted sumo’s struggle to reform harsh conditions that can breed violence in its closed, hierarchical world, although some wrestlers say there have been improvements in the decade since a trainee was beaten to death.
“Sumo, recognizing its responsibility as the sport with the longest history in Japan, must stamp out violence so that the expectations of the people, including youth, are not again betrayed,” Education Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, whose ministry oversees sports, said at a parliamentary committee meeting.
Former yokozuna Isegahama, the head of the gym where Harumafuji trains and his mentor since he arrived in Japan at the age of 16, said he had never seen the Mongolian engage in violence and the incident was regrettable. But he added: “He (Harumafuji) is the one who is most to blame for harming the status of yokozuna. He shouldn’t blame others.”
The head of an advisory body to the JSA, the Yokozuna Deliberation Council, had said this week the affair warranted “extremely harsh punishment”.
A former oyakata was sentenced to five years in prison in 2010 after a court found he had ordered wrestlers to beat 17-year-old trainee Takashi Saito, who had tried to run away, in 2007. Saito died from his injuries.
Mongolian yokozuna Asashoryu, who often found himself at odds with sumo authorities over his behavior, quit the sport that same year after a probe into reports of a drunken scuffle in Tokyo.
Those incidents and increased competition from other sports eroded the popularity of sumo, in which giant wrestlers clad in silk loin-cloths seek to topple, throw or push each other out of a raised ring.
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