Sumo Wrestling, Austian Open, April 2005

Irish Examiner Article

Setanta Sports presenter, Graham Little leads a double life as Chairman of Sumo Ireland, the governing body of Sumo Wrestling here. Here he writes about Ireland’s team made its international sumo debut last month.

The Austrian Sumo Open may not be one of the premier events on the international sumo calendar, but it now has the distinction of being the first tournament ever to host an Ireland team, an historic occasion when an Irish ‘Rikishi’ took a competitive bow in a ‘Dohyo’ for the first time.

The floorboards of the sports hall in the village of Pucking, near Linz groaned under the combined weight of the national teams from established sumo nations like Hungary, Bulgaria, Germany, and Austria. ‘Sumo Ireland’ didn’t trouble the floorboards however- the combined weight of the entire team matched that of each individual Hungarian heavyweight.

Sumo Ireland only had two fighters in Austria. Colin Carroll, President of the Governing Body, 76 kilos when wet; and me, 84 kilos when wearing my five kilogram Mawashi, or sumo nappy. Amateur sumo competitions have three weight categories: Lightweights weigh up to 85 kilos; Middleweights weigh up to 115 kilos; and Heavyweights weigh over 115 kilos.

As in boxing, most fighters aim to lose a few pounds just before each tournament in order to make the weight division. The Sumo Ireland team on the other hand had spent the previous month desperately trying to put on weight to help bolster their bluster of being Ireland’s leading wrestlers.

Four weeks of weight-lifting, Creatine, enormous portions of food and absolutely no exercise were overseen by Michael McGurn, the Ireland rugby team’s Strength and Conditioning coach. To his enormous credit, McGurn has enough imagination to believe that ultimately, a successful Irish team could be developed, albeit one that probably did not feature Colin and me. He has already converted an international rugby power-training programme into a sumo-specific programme for Sumo Ireland.

“The practicalities of applying power within rugby can also be applied to sumo wrestling. It’s all about generating power from the floor right up through the body- using the legs especially- in tandem with the whole body,” said McGurn before we left for Austria. “A beginner sumo, once they’ve achieved the power, has only to add on the technique and they will have a very good chance.”

“A sumo wrestler who is lighter but more powerful,” he continued, “will definitely out-manoeuvre and beat a heavier wrestler who has less power. You have to use your body weight as a pivot and combine that with technique and speed. It’s exactly the same in rugby.”

As sports graduates of Loughborough University, Colin and I believed fully in that principle. For us, this was about the appliance of science overcoming the secrets of tradition. Unfortunately, the language barrier prevented me from communicating this to the other wrestlers we met in our hotel the night before the tournament- large, burly men who spent most of the evening laughing at us.

“Are you coming back to Austria in the winter? That would be good for training.”
“I’m not sure, Andreas, but thanks for asking. Perhaps that would be a good idea.”
“Yes, then I could use you two as skis!”

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