Over the past few days, sumo has returned to normal — more or less — in the city where the COVID-19 pandemic first impacted Japan’s national sport.
In March 2020, as the Japan Sumo Association implemented drastic measures that it hoped would contain the spread of the coronavirus, the Osaka Basho became the first sumo tournament since the end of World War II to be held behind closed doors.
The church-like silence that resulted, where every rikishi's breath or the creak of a mawashi belt could be heard on TV broadcasts, has been replaced three years later with a raucous atmosphere — one far more befitting of the Kansai region’s reputation for boisterous merrymaking.