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They're the tourists who've made as big an impression on London as the capital has made on them.
From posing outside Buckingham Palace in traditional dress to pedalling around on hire bikes, helping pull pints in a pub and, in one case, being spotted browsing TK Maxx before tucking into a McDonald's, the 40 super-size wrestlers battling it out in the Grand Sumo Tournament have clearly relished their time in the city.
The annual contest is being held at the Royal Albert Hall in Kensington. Only the second time the competition has been staged outside Japan – the last time was also in London, in 1991 – the five-day event, which finishes tomorrow, has been a sell-out.
Here, we reveal all about these Japanese wrestling superstars, and the secrets of hosting such a large – in all senses – tournament.
HUGE CHALLENGE FOR A HISTORIC VENUE
Across its 154 years, the Royal Albert Hall has played host to everything from rock and pop concerts to circus spectaculars and even beach volleyball.
Each brought its own challenges, but perhaps none quite as niche as those that come with staging the annual Grand Sumo Tournament.
Aside from the logistical feat of constructing a dohyo – the sacred and traditional five-metre-wide soil-and-sand wrestling ring, complete with its striking pagoda-style roof – there have been all manner of practical considerations.
'We've actually had to source and buy new chairs which can take up to 200kg [31 st] in weight,' Matthew Todd, the Royal Albert Hall's director of programming, says. 'Our usual standard is only 100kg.' Some toilets have even had to be reinforced, particularly those mounted on walls.
Then there's the catering: 1,500lbs of rice, 1,000 packets of instant miso soup, 750 packs of noodles, 1,050 rice balls and 400 bottles of soy sauce – and that's just for snacks. The wrestlers are also eating three full meals a day at their West London hotel.
NO MOUNJARO NEEDED HERE
As befits a sport where there are no weight limits, the bigger you are the better. The combined weight of the 40 contenders currently battling to be crowned Grand Champion is a staggering six tonnes – the weight of a large African bull elephant.
A sumo wrestler's staple meal is chankonabe, a hearty stew of dashi, mirin, bok choy, chicken and other assorted meats. A typical wrestler might consume ten bowls per meal, racking up around 10,000 calories a day.
Legend has it that the renowned wrestler Takamisugi Takakatsu, who retired in 1995 and now works as a coach, once polished off 65 bowls in one sitting.
Notably, the sport's biggest ever competitor Orora Satoshi, born Anatoly Mikhakhanov and the first Russian to compete in professional sumo, weighed in at a peak of 292.6kg (46 stone). He officially retired from the sport in September 2018, immediately after setting his peak weight record.
SUMO SUPERSTARS WHO TRAIN HARD
They may not yet be household names in Britain, but make no mistake: among these visitors are the sport's biggest stars, including 27-year-old Mongolian-born Hoshoryu Tomokatsu and 25-year-old Onosato Daiki – the Federer and Nadal of the sumo world and both Yokozuna, the highest rank in professional sumo, meaning 'grand champion'.
While they might have been posing for photos around London, Scott Findlay, president of British Sumo, the sport's official governing body in the UK, points out that these are rare breaks from the iron discipline the sport demands.
'It's not just the physical side that matters,' he says. 'It's the mental attitude. There's serious mental training involved.'
For those who make it to the top, the sekitori – professional wrestlers in the elite makuuchi and juryo divisions – the rewards are substantial: fan clubs, prize money, attendants and even groupies. But it takes years of punishing work to reach that level. Training is relentless. Wrestlers live communally in 'stables' where they endure daily workouts focused on flexibility, stamina and raw power – often for hours on end, year-round.
Most are recruited around age 15 into a life that is famously tough and steeped in Shinto traditions, the Japanese religion dating from the early 8th century, which incorporates the worship of ancestors and a belief in sacred power.
It remained an entirely Japanese domain until 1993, when Akebono, a Hawaiian-born wrestler, became the first non-Japanese Yokozuna. His success opened the door for others and today each of Japan's 47 stables is allowed one foreign wrestler.
Each morning begins at 5am, when novices tie their hair into chonmage (topknots) and wrap the three-metre-long mawashi (loincloth) around their massive frames.
They then prepare the dohyo, before moving on to stretching, gym work and sparring that can last much of the day. Between training sessions, junior wrestlers are expected to cook, clean and tend to their seniors.
While the sport has adopted modern elements such as social media, QR code tickets and international events, tradition still rules. Lower-ranked wrestlers are rarely permitted girlfriends, and sometimes not even mobile phones. Only once they become sekitori can they live independently – and marry.
FORGET WAGS – MEET THE SWAGS
Today, some of the more senior wrestlers have embraced a higher-profile personal life – and in the age of social media it's perhaps little wonder that some sumo wives, or 'Swags', have garnered their own devoted fan following. Among them is folk singer Konomi Mori, who in 2020 married sumo Takayasu Akira, 35.
He subsequently credited a strong tournament performance in July that year to news of his new wife's first pregnancy, earning him the nickname 'papayasu'.
Then there's the model Yukina Chiba – herself the daughter of a former high-ranking wrestler – who in 2020 married Sumo Ozeki Takakeisho, later celebrating with a lavish reception at Tokyo's Palace Hotel.
Perhaps inevitably, where fame goes, scandal follows. Ryuden Goshi, 34, once hailed for his picture-perfect marriage to nurse Mai Fukumaru, has subsequently been accused of multiple affairs and of paying a fan 5 million yen (£25,000) to conceal their relationship and terminate a pregnancy.
He has not commented publicly but the rumours continue to cast a modern shadow over a sport which has always prized itself on its profoundly spiritual roots.
HOW DO YOU WIN A BOUT?
The sport's rules, as Steve Pateman of the British Sumo Federation notes, are 'perhaps the easiest to understand' of any. On paper, it's not unlike judo: the wrestler who touches the floor or is pushed out of the ring loses.
Yet this simplicity belies its depth. 'Sumo is magnificent, beautiful and historic,' says Scott Findlay. 'If you look at it today, you see it done exactly as it was 200 years ago.'
One of the world's oldest sports, sumo traces its origins back more than 1,500 years.
Once performed on temple grounds as a form of prayers for a bountiful harvest, by the 17th century matches were staged to raise funds for public works, marking the sport's transformation into popular entertainment and giving rise to the professional sumo wrestler.
Its fame spread through vivid woodblock prints, known as nishiki-e, though the sport was periodically banned by governments due to frequent brawls among spectators. It would not be until 1925, with the foundation of the Japan Sumo Association, that the sport became standardised, with the establishment of six major tournaments a year.
A BRITISH GRAND CHAMPION?
It's not unthinkable. In the audience at the Royal Albert Hall this week is 16-year-old Nicholas Tarasenko, only the second British recruit ever to make the grade.
He left his native Yorkshire for Japan this summer after his GCSEs, joining the Minato-beya stable, where he now lives and trains with ten others.
'He's living on the ground floor with other wrestlers,' his father Georgi Zilkin told the Daily Mail last night as he made his way to see one of the bouts.
From a family of judo players, Nicholas stumbled into sumo almost by accident after watching a tournament in his father's native Estonia.
'It was more fun than watching his grandma knit,' jokes Georgi.
'He was 14 when he entered the under-18s – and he won. Nicholas was doing judo for a long time, it's pretty much the same philosophy as sumo, that's why it's so easy to get into. But to master it is another story. We just hope Nicholas has what it takes.'
He adds: 'They do not keep you a prisoner there and if he wasn't enjoying it he would come back.'
Scott Findlay describes the 6ft, 125kg Nicholas – he's aiming to be 158kg (24st 12lbs) by his mid-20s – as having an 'exceptional attitude', and believes he's the real deal. 'I've never known anybody with such an attitude. He's a super intelligent, very self-aware young man,' he says.
'He has unwavering determination. He has fully immersed himself in the life.'
So committed is Nicholas that he has learned Japanese – a notoriously fiendish language to master for native English speakers – which was one of the requirements of his tenure at his stable.
'He's practically fluent,' says Findlay.
Nicholas is set to compete professionally for the first time next year and, with no upper age limit, his career could last into his 40s.
One of those who didn't last is Londoner Nathan Strange, who tried his hand at being a professional sumo back in 1989, moving to Japan after watching the sport on television.
Fighting under the ring name Hidenokuni, he won several bouts before finding the regime too gruelling and returning to the UK. Contacted this week by the Daily Mail, he politely declined to reminisce.
In the UK the sport remains in its infancy, with only a few hundred athletes – but that may soon change.
'There's serious development happening,' says Findlay. 'We're talking to schools, councils and educators about how sumo can boost physical and mental development in children.'
Plans include school programmes and clubs for under-tens. 'Even if you don't make it to the top,' Findlay adds, 'the attitude sumo gives you will shape every part of your life.'
- Additional reporting by Stephanie Condron