Word: wakanoho
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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When the Russian-born sumo wrestler Wakanoho Toshinori (real name Soslan Aleksandrovich Gagloev) dropped his wallet on a street in Tokyo's Sumida Ward on June 24, he might have seemed to be in luck: The wallet was found by an honest woman, who delivered it, with its contents intact, to a police station. Unfortunately for the young rikishi, as sumo wrestlers are known, the contents of his wallet included not only money and his alien registration card, but also a joint containing 0.368 grams of marijuana. On August 18, Wakanoho was arrested, and a search of his residence turned...
...Even though he was released without charge, the Wakanoho's arrest shook the sport to its core. The rikishi escaped charges only because the amount of marijuana in his wallet was smaller than the threshold for legal punishment in Japan. At a news conference, Wakanoho cried, repeatedly apologized and asked for a reinstatement. But a sport whose rituals and conventions are so intimately tied with a traditional sense of Japanese identity is not so easily able to forgive the Russian's transgressions. He was told by the Japan Sumo Association (JSA) that reinstating him was impossible. On September 11, Wakanoho...
...seeking to make an example of Wakanoho, it may have backfired. Hoping to demonstrate that his was an isolated case of substance abuse, the association conducted surprise urine tests on the 69 wrestlers of the top two divisions. These turned up positive tests in two more Russian rikishi, the brothers Roho, 28 and Hakurozan, 26. Both denied using marijuana - Roho appeared on television, saying "I have never seen or even touched the stuff," while Hakurozan promised that a further test would clear their names. Bad idea. In the second test, this time administrated by the only Japanese facility recognized...
...hours to at the most one week." Still, police were unable to find any evidence of marijuana use when they searched the sumo stables of both wrestlers. With no marijuana found in their possession, it will be difficult to bring any criminal charges against the brothers, but like Wakanoho, they were also thrown out of sumo...
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