Is the spring sumo tournament in danger of being canceled?

The question has suddenly arisen as Japan’s national sport struggles to deal with a wave of infections that has already resulted in two of sumo’s most significant one-day meets being called off in the past week.

The 46th edition of the Fuji TV-backed Japan Grand Sumo Tournament and the 54th running of NHK’s Charity Grand Sumo, scheduled for Feb. 6 and 11 respectively, will not be taking place.

Holding the events became untenable when the omicron explosion in Japan reached sumo and resulted in a large number of high-profile wrestlers, including yokozuna Terunofuji and January tournament winner Mitakeumi, testing positive for the virus.

Daily coronavirus cases nationwide had dropped below 100 in late November, but have skyrocketed in early February — often exceeding 100,000.

Vaccinations have of course reduced both COVID-19’s lethality and severity, resulting in a smaller percentage of people requiring hospitalization, but the sheer number of cases nationwide caused by the rapidly spreading omicron variant has counterbalanced that improvement somewhat.

Provisional figures indicate Tuesday had the second highest daily COVID-19-related death toll to date — 159 — since the pandemic began.

With quasi-emergency declarations being extended in many prefectures, fans in Osaka missing out on live sumo for a third straight year has to be considered a possibility.

However, even with the challenges omicron has brought, an outright cancellation of the upcoming spring tournament seems improbable.

Barring another mass outbreak just before the March meet gets under way, the Japan Sumo Association (JSA) is unlikely to scrap a tournament while most wrestlers are healthy and able to compete.

Similarly, moving the entire JSA organization to Osaka only to hold a basho behind closed doors, like what happened in 2020, doesn’t make much sense from a logistical or financial point of view.

Keeping everyone in the Tokyo area and hosting the spring tournament at the Kokugikan though must be in the cards.

Such a move would both avoid the possibility of falling victim to various local restrictions on sporting events crossing prefectural borders — as happened recently with one American football league — and afford the JSA maximum flexibility in terms of ticket sales if the situation improved mid-basho.

While the Osaka meet is scheduled to get under way on March 13, having to transport equipment, food and clothing across the country requires an early move west.

Without permanent bases in Kansai — or sumo’s other regional venues — temporary lodgings not owned by stables are used when sumo leaves the capital.

Temples and shrines are common hosts, but most don’t have existing practice rings and so wrestlers normally need to spend their first few days in Osaka each year building their own rings and training facilities

To ensure adequate preparation time, sumo stables generally pack up and move to the Kansai area during the last week of February, meaning a decision on whether or not to proceed with the meet in Osaka needs to be made soon.

If the JSA decides to stay in Tokyo, hold a spectatorless meet or cancel the spring tournament entirely it will be a bitter blow to fans in sumo’s birthplace.

The last time a tournament took place in Osaka in front of fans, Hakuho and Kakuryu were the active yokozuna, while Takayasu, Goeido and Tochinoshin occupied the ozeki ranks.

Only two of those men are still competing and both of their positions in the top division seem increasingly less secure.

Sumo has witnessed the greatest wrestler in the history of the sport call it a day and a new power rise during its three-year long hiatus from Osaka's supporters.

For the sake of those in that region and the health of the sport in general, it is vital that sumo returns to Kansai as soon as possible.

If the upcoming meet is canceled or moved, some will point fingers at the JSA and say the organization could have done more to prevent the current outbreak from being so widespread.

Public relations department head Shibatayama’s comment — in relation to Terunofuji’s recent bout against Mitakeumi a day before the latter tested positive — saying that just doing sumo doesn’t necessarily make someone a close contact raised many eyebrows.

That reaction turned to outright annoyance online when the yokozuna — and numerous others that had participated in the same retirement ceremony — subsequently were found to be infected.

With the speed at which omicron spreads rendering previous COVID-19 countermeasures insufficient worldwide however, it’s unclear if the JSA could realistically have prevented the outbreak — especially given that it has followed all official government guidelines and even added extra restrictions of its own since the pandemic began.

It can also be hard to know exactly what the correct approach to dealing with COVID-19 in a sporting context is at this stage. The contrast between The Japan Times staff writer Dan Orlowitz reporting on full-body hazmat suits at the Winter Olympics while stadiums are full of maskless fans in Europe and the U.S. is stark, and it shows that politics, culture and simple weariness after two years of restrictions all play a part in these decisions.

The middle ground path taken in Japan, with no lockdowns and a heavy reliance on people wearing masks, following guidelines and getting vaccinated, has been relatively successful and allowed sumo to hold tournaments at three of the sport’s four regular venues since the pandemic started.

The exception to that success is Osaka, being the only location where fans have missed out completely since COVID-19 began.

Everyone in sumo is hoping that’s a situation that will be remedied next month.