One of sumo’s most reliable truisms is that “results in training mean nothing.”
For every wrestler who has carried impressive pre-basho form into a tournament, there is another whose wins in practice turned out to be little more than a mirage.
Make no mistake — Japan’s national sport has perhaps the most violent and intense training sessions of any athletic endeavor, but it’s also a sport where practice results are unreliable if taken as a predictor of future success.
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