Takanohana Koji
| Takanohana Kōji | |
|---|---|
| 貴乃花 光司 | |
 |
|
| Personal information | |
| Born | Kōji Hanada August 12, 1972 Suginami, Tokyo, Japan |
| Height | 1.85 m (6 ft 1 in) |
| Weight | 154 kg (340 lb; 24.3 st) |
| Career | |
| Stable | Fujishima → Futagoyama |
| Record | 794-262-201 |
| Debut | March, 1988 |
| Highest rank | Yokozuna (November, 1994) |
| Retired | January, 2003 |
| Championships | 22 (Makuuchi) 2 (Makushita) |
| Special Prizes | Outstanding Performance (4) Fighting Spirit (2) Technique (3) |
| Gold Stars | 1 (Chiyonofuji) |
| * Up to date as of January, 2003. | |
Takanohana (II) Kōji (貴乃花 光司 Takanohana Kōji?, born August 12, 1972 as Kōji Hanada (花田 光司 Hanada Kōji)) is a Japanese former sumo wrestler. He was the 65th man in history to reach sumo's highest rank of yokozuna, and he won 22 tournament championships between 1992 and 2001, the sixth highest total ever. The son of a popular ōzeki ranked wrestler from the 1970s, Takanohana's rise through the ranks alongside his elder brother Wakanohana and his rivalry with the foreign born yokozuna Akebono saw interest in sumo and attendance at tournaments soar during the early 1990s.
Takanohana was the youngest ever to reach the top division at just 17, and he set a number of other age-related records. He had a solid but aggressive style, looking to get a right hand grip on his opponents' mawashi and move them quickly out of the ring. He won over half his bouts by a straightforward yori-kiri, or force out. In his later career he suffered increasingly from injuries, and he retired in January 2003 at the age of 30. He is now the head coach of Takanohana stable and a senior member of the Japan Sumo Association.
Takanohana comes from a family with a great sumo history, sometimes called the "Hanada Dynasty." His uncle Wakanohana Kanji I was a yokozuna from 1958 to 1962, and his father Takanohana Kenshi had held the second highest rank of ōzeki for a then record 50 tournaments from 1972 to 1981. Upon his retirement his father established the training stable (heya) Fujishima stable. The young Kōji Hanada had been practising sumo since elementary school and won the equivalent of a yokozuna title at junior high school. Upon his graduation in 1988 he formally joined his father's stable. His elder brother Masaru had been planning to complete high school but dropped out so as not to lag behind his brother.
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