Japan’s famously huge sumo wrestlers will be thinner and shorter in the future after the sport’s governing body relaxed minimum standards for height and weight in an effort to lure more young recruits.
The Japan Sumo Association has dropped a rule that professional wrestlers must be at least 167cm (5ft 6in) tall and 67kg (10st 7lb) in weight, provided they pass a fitness test. The change is intended to address a plummet in the numbers of young men seeking to become rikishi, as sumo wrestlers are known.
From a peak of 160 in 1992, there were only 34 applicants this spring, the peak time for recruitment, which takes place six times a year. In the past, aspiring wrestlers were known to drink large quantities
