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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, May 15, 2002

Sumo less tolerant of Akebono

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

Three years ago this month, Chad Rowan was able to look out the four-story sumo stable where he lived in Tokyo and glimpse the growing media vigil that surrounded him.

At every turn, the man from Waimanalo who competed as Akebono was hounded by a thicket of microphones seeking his retirement announcement.

At least the media asked. Some members of the Yokozuna Promotion Council shrilly demanded the first foreign-born grand champion step down after missing three consecutive tournaments because of a herniated disk.

Contrast that now with Takanohana, whose absence from the current Natsu Basho, the yokozuna-record sixth consecutive tournament he has spent on the sidelines, has prompted fewer pointed questions and less of an uproar.

Not since the May tournament a year ago, when he suffered knee ligament damage that led to surgery, has Takanohana competed. Nor can anybody say with certainty when he will again.

Clearly, there is a curious difference of standards being applied. There are two distinct levels of tolerance accorded two sumotori of the same rank from the same era.

In sumo, unlike most sports, there is no such thing as retiring and coming back later. There are no Michael Jordan or Larry Holmes-like flip flops allowed.

Yokozuna, of which there have been just 67 in the centuries-old sport, occupy an exalted position as living symbols of a national sport. In theory, it is the only rank in the sport of emperors from which there is no demotion. The fate of every other sumotori rises or falls on how they do in the ring from tournament to tournament.

But so esteemed is the yokozuna and so huge the burden of the position that its caretaker is expected to hang up the mawashi when he can no longer uphold the prestige of the rank. In this the former Tochinishiki is held up as the ideal. His 1960 retirement was so well timed that sportswriters romanticized it as a "falling of the cherry blossoms."

Whereas Akebono was continually reminded that to be worthy of the sport's highest rank is not to dishonor it, the sumo establishment seems to have less inclination about pressing the point with Takanohana.

For all his trail-blazing success and eventual naturalized citizenship, Akebono was still an outsider while Takanohana, the son of one of sumo's most popular figures and nephew of a former sumo association president, came with a pedigree.

Perhaps what is happening now is also a sign of lean times sumo is suffering, desperate to attract fans that it allows a fading star to hold out hopes of a comeback.

Ultimately, Akebono was able to leave with his head held high, announcing his retirement in January 2001 after winning the previous tournament. You wonder if Takanohana will be able to do as much.