finally finished watching the tournament.
so long takamisakari, and thanks for the memories!
great to see the takanoyama match from the last day, which wasn't shown on the broadcast i watched. fantastic match and just further illustrates that he's one of the most exciting athletes in any sport. and you could tell he was putting everything into that match, looking like he almost collapsed at the end.
having a rematch in the ikioi vs. baruto match on the final day was a poor decision. baruto touched well before ikioi hit the ground, and they were both in pretty defenseless positions, so i don't particularly buy their reasoning for having a rematch (although i don't really understand that rule very well). and ikioi could have gone for a henka in the rematch, but still went with straightforward sumo against the much bigger and more experienced man, and he gets a lot of credit for that.
harumafuji had outstanding sumo against hakuho. the speed at the tachiai and the way he was able to get such a deep double-inside grip was so impressive, and from that point on hakuho was just defending. great response to the criticism harumafuji got after his first tournament as a yokozuna. and i didn't see any of his wins as being particularly suspicious.
next tournament will be the first time in years that hakuho won't be the east yokozuna!
have an offhand question, what happens in the 310 mark?
yeah, as lapu-lapu said that was asashoryu's way of psyching himself up. when they make their final trip back to the salt to get ready for the actual match, pretty much everyone gives themselves an extra hearty slap in the belly or on the mawashi.
takamisakari, who retired this tournament, had pretty much the greatest psyche-up routine in sumo history.
