sumo question

[perri.eason@louisville.edu (by way of Christopher J. Basten)]

I got this in the mail and was wondering if someone on the list could
help find the needed information.   Please respond to

perri.eason@louisville.edu

Thanks much,

Chris


Hi -

I am hoping that you are the right person - got your name from a web site -
but please forgive me if you have no idea what I'm talking about.  I am a
behavioral ecologist and typically spend my time studying aggression in
birds with occasional looks at mating strategies.  I spent a year on a
post-doc in Japan and became a sumo fan and am writing you with a question
about sumo.  I am thinking of doing a study of sumo tactics, mixing my work
with my play, but I need some numbers that I can't seem to find.  Do you
know where  I might be able to find the weights of the rikishi?  I can get
their current weights from the Nihon Sumo Kyokai web site, but what I need
is their weights around the times of the tournaments, or at least an annual
weight (i.e. a weight for 1997 that I could assume remained approximately
the same for that year).

If you don't know where I could find this information, could you please
tell me other people that I might ask?  I cannot read much Japanese but
would be more than willing to struggle through if there is a
Japanese-language source but no English one.

Thank you,

Perri Eason