The January 2011 Hatsu Basho grand sumo tournament saw a newly-promoted Juryo wrestler named Nionoumi (鳰の湖). Nionoumi is from Otsu, Shiga Prefecture. His ring name (shikona) means Lake of the Grebe (“Nio” means grebe), in reference to Shiga’s official bird and Lake Biwa.

He belongs to the Kitanoumi Stable run by former Yokozuna Kitanoumi, one of sumo greatest yokozuna. Born in Dec. 1986, Nionoumi debut as a sumo wrestler in March 2002. He is about 173.5 cm tall and weighs 139 kg. During the Hatsu Basho tourney, NHK News (starting at 6:10 pm on weekdays) in Otsu broadcast his bouts every day and we held high hopes for him.

At age 24, he is still young enough to earn promotion to the top Makunouchi Division. It’s been quite  few years since the last time we saw a sumo wrestler from Shiga in the top two divisions of sumo.

Unfortunately, at the Hatsu Basho ending on Jan. 23, 2011, Nionoumi had a losing record of 5 wins and 10 losses in his Juryo debut. This means that he will likely be demoted back to the Makushita Division from his current rank of Juryo No. 12. Out of 15 bouts in a tournament, a sumo wrestler must have at least 8 wins to earn a promotion. Let’s hope Nionoumi bounces back and reaches Juryo and Makunouchi ranks.

See his official profile here:
http://sumo.goo.ne.jp/eng/ozumo_meikan/rikishi_joho/rikishi_2476.html

Update: Unfortunately, due to the yaocho bout-fixing scandal, the Japan Sumo Association has cancelled the Spring sumo tournament that was to be held in March in Osaka. We won’t be seeing Nionoumi until at least May (or later if the May tournament is cancelled too). From Sept. 2013, Nionoumi was demoted to Makushita and even sank to Sandanme. He is still going up and down within the Makushita ranks as of Sept. 2015.