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Tokyo (AFP)
The greatest Japanese sumo champion, Hakuho, tested positive for covid-19, the authorities of this sport confirmed on Tuesday in Japan that registers an increase in infections on the eve of the start of a championship.
Hakuho, 35, occupies the highest rank of yokozuna and holds the all-time record of 44 tournament wins. He was preparing for the January championship, which starts on Sunday.
He tested positive after feeling that he had lost his sense of smell, according to local press.
So far, no decision has been made about their participation, the Japan Sumo Association (AJS) told AFP. The other wrestlers on his team (“heya”) who had recently come into contact with him have also been tested, according to public television NHK.
The Mongolian yokozuna, who became a Japanese national in September 2019, had missed the last two tournaments, out of six per year, due to injury.
Hakuho and fellow yokozuna Kakuryu, also of Mongol origin and recently nationalized Japanese, had received a serious warning for their absences.
The AJS hopes that the yokozuna will honor their rank by scoring victories, without which they must retire from the sport.
Coronavirus infections have multiplied in recent months in the very closed world of sumo. Eleven members of another heya tested positive last week, including Wakatakakage, a wrestler who competes in the first division.
A sumo wrestler died of covid-19 last May, the first death related to the pandemic in this traditional sports discipline.
The AJS had made the exceptional decision to cancel the tournament in May, for the third time in sumo history.
Although sumo is not an Olympic discipline, the contagions of covid-19 are a negative sign a few months before the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, postponed to 2021 due to the pandemic.
Another Japanese athlete, world number one badminton player Kento Momota, tested positive on Sunday, leading to the withdrawal of the Japanese delegation from a competition.
© 2021 AFP
