Superhuman strength can come from diverse sources. Comic-book hero Asterix the Gaul had a magic potion brewed by a wizard, Popeye the sailor swore by the humble can of spinach, while Japan’s star sumo wrestlers rely on a hearty meat and vegetable stew filled with calories called chankonabe to power them through bouts.
Andrew Freund is in charge of bringing a group of elite sumo wrestlers to Australia to showcase their skills as part of the Sumo International Down Under event in Sydney on Sunday and said the rumour the famed stew holds 10,000 calories isn’t quite true.
“I mean, 10,000 was an arbitrary number, not everyone’s getting 10,000 calories a day,” Freund said. “Some guys are eating 5000 or 12,000. I mean, it’s – that’s just an estimate.
“It’s boiled really well so everything is soft, and that goes down easily after they’re exhausted from practice. It makes it so easy to digest. As opposed to, like, crunching on a carrot or something. It’s soft and hot, which is good for digestion.”
World champion sumo wrestler Mendsaikhan Tsogterdene is in Sydney for a match on Sunday. Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
Freund is originally from the United States and, after working in Japan, decided to set up his own sumo wrestling club in Los Angeles 27 years ago. It has led to a lifelong dedication to the sport.
He feels many casual observers have little idea of the dedication that goes into the sumo wrestler’s craft. “There’s a lot of misconceptions that people have about sumo,” Freund said. “People often think sumo wrestlers are just obese guys who don’t move a lot.”
Reporter Jonathan Drennan is dwarfed by visiting Japanese sumo wrestlers in Sydney.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
“First of all, they’re doing five or six hours of training every morning, then also doing weight training, swimming and other exercises in the afternoon.
“So they could be doing six to eight to 10 hours of rigorous physical exercise every day. And you could take athletes from other sports and very few of them would have, number one, the endurance, number two, the flexibility – because there’s almost nobody, apart from maybe like a contortionist or a gymnast, that has the kind of flexibility like them. Not to mention their strength and skill.”
The life of a sumo wrestler is a tough one. You live and breathe sumo and eat chankonabe. Sumo wrestlers live in a specialist training compound and train relentlessly to reach the top of a sport that is still followed fanatically in Japan.
Hiroki Sumi is one of the sumo wrestlers on display in Sydney, and was formerly one of Japan’s best. After his elite career in the sumo ring in Japan he has become a star on the screen, appearing in Netflix drama Sanctuary and John Wick: Chapter 4 with Keanu Reeves.
What makes his sport so special for those who don’t understand it?
“One of the cool things is that the amount of training and practice is so long,” Sumi said. “But the actual match is so short, there’s so much power and energy into a very short match. So it’s wonderful for people to watch that.”
Sumo International Down Under is at the ICC Sydney Theatre on January 21.
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