The greatest fighter ever leaves at 36, due to Covid and injuries: in two thousand years there has never been a champion like this
He leaves the greatest ever: in two thousand years of sumo, there has never been a champion like him. And for decades to come, the experts of the Rising Sun predict, there will never be. He will no longer get up at 5 in the morning to start training, he will no longer swallow those ten thousand calories to burn every day. At 36, Hakuho retires. After more than a thousand victories in the ring, 1,187 giants of muscle and fat (almost completely subcutaneous, unlike the fat of us mere mortals) hoisted from the sand and thrown beyond the magic ring of the arena. No Yokozuna (great champion) has ever won 45 major tournaments (honbasho) like him. The last last July, in the “temple” of Nagoya, in Tokyo, where Hakuho raised and tore up his rivals as usual with a final 15 to 0. The same strength as always, but his knees more and more fragile.
The biggest enemies of the sumo wrestler are injuries. For ten years, Hakuho’s body remained untouched. Luck and consistency: year after year the same weight, from 154 to 156 kilograms. The same elasticity. Then the first crunches began at the base of everything. To the big toes. And then the knees started to give. Then Covid also started, interrupting the routine of training and meetings. Hakuho also got sick last January and recovered. But last year the Yokozuna Grand Council issued him a rare warning after the man from Ulan Bator (who became a Japanese citizen in 2019) had missed six consecutive tournaments: go back to fight otherwise you are out and we will remove the scepter.
The giant famous for his lightning attacks has sketched, gritted his teeth, at the beginning of 2021 he had an operation on his right knee. And this summer he defeated Terunofuji to the last breath, a Mongol not yet twenty years old who was awarded the title of Yokozuna (the 73rd in two thousand years). Another immigrant from Ulan Bator: in the slits of his eyes “the old” Hakuho must have glimpsed something of his youth. His father, Jigjidiin Monkhbat, a legendary Mongolian fighter and silver medalist at the 1968 Olympics, would have liked him to play basketball. Him instead at 15 he wanted to move to Japan to give himself body and soul to the “struggle of the gods”. Which is not a discipline for minors.
That six-foot-tall boy weighed just 62 kilograms. The masters of his Miyagino (one of the 50 sumo schools opened in Japan) shook their heads. He started cooking pots of rice for the older athletes and cleaning the rooms, as befits aspiring wrestlers. His first name, Davaajargal, was changed to Hakuho (the white bird from Chinese mythology). AND within three years the tall man gained weight and power, making their way among the best. Another three years and the White Bird made his entry into Makuuchi, the series A of sumo, managing to beat the great Asashoryu, the first Mongolian to become Yokozuna. Another passing of the baton and an extraordinary spectacle. It was around this time that the writer saw the promise and the veteran fight against each other in a great tournament in the “temple” of Nagoya.
Sumo, even for those who know little or nothing about it, can be hypnotizing: a set of slow rituals (the throwing of salt behind the shoulders, the head bending towards the opponent before the fight). And a few seconds in which everything is decided. Mass and speed, the heaviness of the human being that releases the agility of a panther. An ancestral symbol of Japan, even if in the last few years the great fighters have been foreigners: men from Central Asia, Bulgarians, Chinese, Brazilians, Georgians. What was the national sport of the Rising Sun at the beginning of the twentieth century has become folklore for tourists, supplanted by baseball and football. Ten years ago, a rigged tournament scandal overshadowed sumo in the eyes of the Japanese. The White Bird has given him back his polish. And now he will be able to open his school: «I want to give to others at least a little of what I have received».
September 28, 2021 (change September 28, 2021 | 22:15)
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