4 days ago
SUMO/ Onosato puts on ring-entering ritual indoors at Meiji Jingu
Yokozuna Onosato performs the ring-entering ceremony at Meiji Jingu shrine in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward on March 30. (Pool)
Newly promoted yokozuna Onosato performed his first ring-entering ceremony at Tokyo's Meiji Jingu shrine, but did so indoors because of rain.
The May 30 ceremony was closed to general visitors.
The 24-year-old Onosato is the 75th sumo wrestler to hold the title of yokozuna and the third to do so from Ishikawa Prefecture.
He was accompanied to the venue in Shibuya Ward by two sumo wrestlers from the same Nishonoseki stable. Komusubi Takayasu served as a sword-bearer and maegashira No. 15 Ryuden as an usher.
Onosato performed the Unryu-style ring-entering ceremony just as his stablemaster Nishonoseki, the former yokozuna Kisenosato, did.
It was the first time the ceremony has been held inside Meiji Jingu shrine due to bad weather since Chiyonoyama, the 41st yokozuna, began to hold a ring-entering ceremony at the shrine, according to the Japan Sumo Association.
