Takanosato Toshihide
| Takanosato Toshihide | |
|---|---|
| 隆の里俊英 | |
Takanosato's handprint displayed on a monument in Ryōgoku, Tokyo
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| Personal information | |
| Born | Toshihide Takaya September 29, 1952 Aomori, Japan |
| Died | November 7, 2011 (aged 59) Fukuoka, Japan |
| Height | 1.82 m (5 ft 11 1⁄2 in) |
| Weight | 159 kg (351 lb) |
| Career | |
| Stable | Futagoyama |
| Record | 693–493–80 |
| Debut | July 1968 |
| Highest rank | Yokozuna (July 1983) |
| Retired | January 1986 |
| Championships | 4 (Makuuchi) 1 (Jūryō) |
| Special Prizes | Outstanding Performance (2) Fighting Spirit (5) |
| Gold Stars | 2 (Wajima, Kitanoumi) |
| * Up to date as of March 2007. | |
Takanosato Toshihide (Toshihide Takaya, September 29, 1952 – November 7, 2011) was a sumo wrestler from Namioka, Aomori, Japan. He was the sport's 59th yokozuna from 1983 to 1986 and won four top division tournament championships. After retirement he established Naruto stable which he ran from 1989 until his death.
Takanosato played football and judo before turning to sumo. He was from the same area of Japan as Wakanohana Kanji II and the two entered professional sumo together in July 1968, joining Futagoyama stable. Takanosato reached the top makuuchi division in May 1975 but had some indifferent results and fell back to the jūryō division on several occasions. A late developer, he did not reach the san'yaku ranks until 1979, by which time Wakanohana was already a yokozuna. In 1980 he was runner-up in two consecutive tournaments, but he did so from the maegashira ranks. Nicknamed "Popeye" because of his brawny physique, he was one of the few wrestlers in his day to use weight training, which is now commonplace in sumo. By 1981 he was a san'yaku regular, and in January 1982 he produced his third runner-up performance, this time at sekiwake rank, and earned promotion to ōzeki. Following his promotion he announced that he had been suffering from diabetes for many years, and had devised a special diet to keep the illness under control. He won his first top division championship in September 1982 with a perfect 15-0 record. He was runner-up in the tournaments of March and May 1983, and then took his second championship in July. Following this tournament was promoted to yokozuna.
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