Chiyonokuni
| Chiyonokuni Toshiki | |
|---|---|
| 千代の国 憲輝 | |
 |
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| Personal information | |
| Born | Toshiki Sawada July 10, 1990 Iga, Mie, Japan |
| Height | 1.82 m (5 ft 11 1⁄2 in) |
| Weight | 138 kg (304 lb) |
| Career | |
| Stable | Kokonoe |
| Current rank | see below |
| Debut | May, 2006 |
| Highest rank | Maegashira 4 (Nov 2016) |
| Championships | 2 (Jūryō) 1 (Sandanme) 1 (Jonidan) |
| * Up to date as of Mar 26, 2017. | |
Chiyonokuni Toshiki (born 10 July 1990 as Toshiki Sawada) is a sumo wrestler from Iga, Mie, Japan. Making his professional debut in May 2006, he reached the top makuuchi division for the first time in January 2012. He has a highest rank of maegashira 4, but he has also been restricted by injuries, falling to the sandanme division in 2015 before staging a comeback. He is a member of Kokonoe stable.
Toshiki Sawada was born the son of a Buddhist temple head priest. From a very young age he had great interest in combat sports such as karate. He has said he was in the fourth grade when he first foretold he would be a professional sumo wrestler in the future. As a member of his judo team in junior high school he advanced to the best sixteen in a national tournament.
Upon graduating from junior high school he joined former yokozuna Chiyonofuji's Kokonoe stable. He made his professional debut in May 2006. Though he recorded many winning tournaments in his career in the unsalaried ranks, he also missed four tournaments in this span, which would demote him each time and which he would have to fight back from in following tournaments. From the November 2008 tournament he missed two tournaments in a row, but he bounced back from this in the subsequent March 2009 tournament with a perfect 7-0 followed by a playoff win to take the jonidan championship. His fortunes largely changed after this and he had a series of mostly winning tournaments culminating in a 6-1 record at makushita 41 and coming just short of the championship by losing a playoff to Tochitsubasa. He followed this with two strong 5-2 winning tournaments.
During this time, however the ramifications of the match-fixing scandal that would rock the sumo world were becoming apparent. Due to this, Chiyonokuni, along with many other upper makushita wrestlers was promoted to salaried ranks of jūryō for the July 2011 though his actual performance so far would not have not merited promotion. The expelled rikishi included his elder stablemate Chiyohakuho. Chiyonokuni was reported to have very mixed feelings about the scandal and admitted it felt surreal to be promoted to jūryō under such strange circumstances. He did however exceed expectations and about recorded three strong winning tournaments in a row to earn promotion to the top division in January 2012.
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