Sumo — a sport based on collisions — is set to have one of its most impactful ever weeks on the western consciousness as a showcase event gets underway at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
The British capital is playing host to the Japan Sumo Association’s first overseas trip since a 2013 tour to Jakarta, Indonesia, and the first European exhibition of any kind in over three decades.
The world is a very different place since that 1995 jaunt to France and Austria, when yokozuna Akebono delighted crowds in Paris and the Hanada brothers (Takanohana and Wakanohana) toured the sights of Vienna in a horse-drawn carriage.
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