Word: sumo
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...love Sumo," says Levan Gorgadze, 18, a former judo champion from Tbilisi, Georgia. And he's good at it too. Gorgadze hit the amateur European sumo tour two years ago, and in this year's Junior World Sumo Championship in Tokyo he finished second in heavyweight competition. With a small-town boy's big-city dream, he hopes to move from amateur to professional in the sacred rings of sumo in the sport's motherland. "The only place to reach the top is in Japan," he says. For the past two months, the 6-ft. 3-in., 276-lb. teen...
Those gods--who rule the Japan Sumo Association--have long felt that there has been a bit too much foreign infusion. Indeed, in the past two years, the only wrestler to hold the highest sumo rank of yokozuna has been Asashoryu, a 25-year-old sensation from Mongolia (where he was born Dolgorsuren Dagvadorj). Asashoryu has won the past six grand sumo tournaments, and he appears to be on track to win his seventh, which would be a record. One of the most popular up-and-comers today is Kotooshu, 22, a Bulgarian (born Kaloyan Stefanov Mahlyanov) with quick feet...
...must be smiling. Japan's national sport, which began as an ancient form of religious worship, is muscling its way around the modern world. Today the grand champion of Japan hails from Mongolia, and as U.S. team coach Yoshisada Yonezuka puts it, "Big guys smash into each other" in sumo rings from Poland to Brazil. Elite-level sumo came to the U.S. for the first time in 20 years with a tournament this month in Las Vegas. Now there's the Sumo Ultimate Masters Organization (S.U.M.O.), a new U.S.-based league with global aspirations and the backing of the International...
...course, there will be action figures. A popular one might be Hawaiian-born Kaleo, a former champ in Japan's pro league who, at his peak, weighed 345 lbs. He came out of retirement to compete, bulking up with an old sumo trick: eat chanko nabe, a rich stew, then promptly go to sleep. But size ultimately matters less than technique--there are 70 moves a wrestler can use to get his opponent out of the ring. "I'm a pusher, a thruster," says Kaleo, who fights for Japan. "I come out like a boo rush." An all-American sumo...
...police orders, scrambled over the rocky terrain. Yoshiaki and Kuniko Miyajima reached the remnants of what seemed to be seat 12-K; it had been as signed to their son Takeshi, 9, who had been flying to visit an uncle. The couple prayed over the shattered seat. Several giant sumo wrestlers reached the wreck age, in which the wife and two children of their "stablemaster," or trainer, had died. Doctors who helped retrieve the bodies, many of which were horribly broken, also found some whose injuries might not have been fatal had help come more quickly. Contended one physician...