Sumo has come to the U.K.. London’s Royal Albert Hall is hosting a professional sumo tournament featuring forty of the biggest names in the sport.
Apparently, the tournament has been a success so far, with tickets quickly selling out.
I read an interesting interview with someone responsible for making the Royal Albert Hall, which is more famous for hosting classical music concerts, ready for the tournament. Some of the biggest problems involved dealing with the weight of the athletes. The regular chairs could only support 100kg of weight, and so were not strong enough for the wrestlers. Sturdier chairs which could hold 200kg of weight had to be installed instead. And the toilets had to be reinforced to deal with the risk of them collapsing under the weight of a wrestler with indigestion.
The venue also had to take out expensive insurance to cover the possibility that someone sitting on a ringside seat would be squashed by a sumo falling out of the ring.
Perhaps the
tournament will inspire a young British boy, and in twenty years we will have a
British Yokozuna?
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