MINAMI-SOMA, Fukushima Prefecture--Two brothers from disaster-stricken Minami-Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, will be competing at the all-Japan prefectural junior high school sumo championships starting on Aug. 7 at Tokyo's Ryogoku Kokugikan.
MINAMI-SOMA, Fukushima Prefecture--Two brothers from disaster-stricken Minami-Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, will be competing at the all-Japan prefectural junior high school sumo championships starting on Aug. 7 at Tokyo's Ryogoku Kokugikan.
The brothers' success can be attributed to coaches and supporters working hard to help sumo take root in the local community, which is now being affected by the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Yuto Shiga, 14, and Hideto Shiga, 13, are third-year and second-year students, respectively, at Ishigami Junior High School. Despite his 169-cm, 60-kg frame, small for a sumo wrestler, Yuto won the lightweight division of the Fukushima prefectural sumo championships in June. Yuto says he looks forward to getting into the sumo ring at Kokugikan for the first time.
Hideto, the younger brother, has won in the championships' open division for two years in a row with his large 171-cm and 95-kg frame.
"I want to win the all-Japan tournament with my thrusting sumo, my forte," says Hideto.
The brothers have been training under Hidekazu Okisawa, 38, a teacher who coaches the sumo club at Soma Agricultural High School, since they were in elementary school. The Soma Agricultural High School's sumo club was founded as a way to strengthen local sumo ahead of the 1995 National Athletic Meet, held in Fukushima.
Since the founding, local sumo coaches have cooperated with the local sumo federation, and held sumo tournaments for kids and other events to help promote sumo. These tournaments were how the Shiga brothers became enthralled with sumo. When Yuto enrolled in junior high, he founded a sumo club alone. Younger brother Hideto and others joined the club to boost membership to five.
Last month, the club won a berth in the all-Japan junior high school sumo championships -- to be held on Aug. 21 and 22 in Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture -- as a team.
On March 11, the day of the Great East Japan Earthquake, the brothers evacuated from their home with their family and spent the night in their car. They went directly to relatives' home in Shiroishi, Miyagi Prefecture, and stayed there for about a week. The family still lives with relatives in Soma, because their family home is in a highly radioactive district of the city.
Ishigami Junior High School is also too dangerous to enter now, so the students have to commute by bus to another junior high school outside the danger zone. The sumo ring at Soma Agricultural High School also could not be used anymore, so the brothers have been doing image training at home and actual training at the junior high they are temporarily commuting to. "They have been working hard under tough circumstances," says Okisawa. On weekends, the brothers go to another high school to practice.
Soma, the neighboring city to the north of Minami-Soma, has a historic connection to sumo. It is home to former sekiwake Tochiazuma, 66. Since Tochiazuma's second son, stablemaster Tamanoi, 34, took over his father's stable, the stable has been hosting a summer training camp in Soma every year.
Tamanoi says, "The local survivors of the March 11 disaster are happy (to hear that). I hope the brothers will do their best as the hopefuls of the local community."