Sumos perform New Year 2018 ritual

Sumo's three grand champions clapped their hands and stamped their feet in a traditional New Year offering to the Shinto gods Tuesday, as the sport seeks to turn the page on a scandal-hit 2017.Wearing just their traditional white knotted belts - or "kesho-mawashi" - with colorful aprons, the "Yokozuna" champions performed the ritual in front of an appreciative crowd of hundreds of fans. Hakuho, Kisenosato and Kakuryu were flanked by a traditional sword-bearer and another attendant whose job is to walk ahead of the champions parting the crowds.


The rite took place at Tokyo's Meiji Shrine dedicated to Emperor Meiji, the great grandfather of reigning Emperor Akihito, making explicit the links between the sport and the Shinto tradition in which it is steeped. The "ring-entering" ceremony is also performed at the start of each day in sumo's top-division tournament. Japan's ancient sport is keen to start afresh after an annus horribilis in 2017, culminating in the resignation of one of its top champions in disgrace.

Harumafuji, 33, was charged and fined 500,000 yen for a brutal assault on a rival wrestler while out drinking in an incident that has rocked the sport to its core. Yokozuna are expected to be beyond moral reproach, but the writing was on the wall for Harumafuji after he confessed to hitting fellow wrestler Takanoiwa for texting his girlfriend.Mongolian Harumafuji, who reached sumo's hallowed rank five years ago, admitted punching his fellow countryman Takanoiwa and bashing him with a karaoke remote control.

-AFP, Tokyo