Women's sumo in the spotlight - 28th April 2023

For many, on hearing the words "sumo wrestler", an image of a hefty, bare-skinned Asian man comes to mind. However, sumo wrestling is quickly becoming a sport for women, like Luciana Watanabe, a big name in sumo in Brazil.

Luciana Watanabe: "In the whole world, there are many women practising sumo in more than 80 countries. There are already four weight categories. I think we are expanding this. My idea is to break prejudices."

In Japan, the birthplace of sumo, women are still banned in the professional sport. This is due to its strong ties to the Shinto religion, which lasted for 1500 years. Women were traditionally seen as impure or bad luck and were once even forbidden to attend tournaments or have any physical contact with fighters.

2001 saw the launch of an international amateur women's sumo championship, and now organisers have high hopes that it may be recognised by the Olympics in future.

While amateur practitioner Diana Dall'Olio has experimented with other forms of wrestling, she favours sumo.

Diana Dall'Olio: "It is tiring, but the wrestling is quick. I've done judo and jiu-jitsu, but they are slow. Sumo is very fast, like 10 seconds. That's very good."

In Brazil, having been transported to the continent by Japanese immigrants in the early 1900s, over half of the 600 wrestlers are women. Valeria Dall'Olio is one of them and she loves to break down people's prejudices.

Valeria Dall'Olio: "There are preconceived ideas. Sometimes when I say I practise sumo, everyone looks at me thinking I should be fat, but amateur also has categories, and I fight in the medium category."

It seems that nowadays the conventional image of a sumo wrestler is an outdated one, in more ways than one.