Hakuho, Japan’s top-ranked sumo wrestler, is sidelined amid a troubling rise of cases in Japan.
Cristiano Ronaldo was probably the most famous athlete to test positive for coronavirus. But a case could be made that the most dominant athlete to contract it is Hakuho, who learned Tuesday that he had tested positive. Hakuho, Japan’s top-ranked sumo wrestler, is perhaps the best ever to compete in the ancient Japanese sport. At 35, he has won the six-times-yearly top-level championship a record 44 times, dwarfing the previous mark of 32 set by an earlier-era champion, Taiho, in the 1960s and ’70s. In a statement released by Japan’s sumo association, Hakuho said he took a coronavirus test on Sunday after noticing that he had lost his sense of smell. He had been expected to make a comeback in the first tournament of the year, scheduled to start on Sunday, after having missed the previous two because of a knee injury. Now he will miss it — if the event takes place at all. Concerned by rising case numbers, Japan’s government said Monday that it was considering declaring a monthlong state of emergency in Tokyo. Sumo, which involves close physical contact and face-to-face interactions, would seem to be particularly fertile ground for transmitting the virus.
