With the retirement of former ozeki Tochinoshin this week, the curtain has fallen on 22 years of Georgian involvement in professional sumo.

A native of Mtskheta — the oldest continuously inhabited European city outside of Greece and Cyprus — Tochinoshin (real name Levan Gorgadze) was the youngest and most successful of the four Georgian rikishi that joined ōzumo between 2001 and 2006.

Although Gorgadze initially struggled to find a stable willing to give him a shot, the former junior world medalist quickly rose up the ranks once he made it into the professional game.