Re: [sumo] drug use in sumo

[Alex Ferguson <abf@cs.ucc.ie>]

On Fri, Apr 02, 2004 at 11:33:20PM +0000, ozora ozora wrote:
>   I know of one low ranked wrestler who beat a certain yokozuna during 
> jungyo cause he was off the juice between basho, suppposedly it makes you 
> aggressive or something.  Anyway, I am sure there are drugs, but I am not 
> sure what will or should be done about it.

Even if you're still speaking of ex-rikishi here, "a certain yokozuna"
is a small enough pool to make this claim about, if they cared to warm
up their lawyers. :/  If 'juice' means steroids (which are the obvious
thing to use in sumo, and which do indeed have the aggression
side-effect) then I can't imagine why a systematic abuser of same would
be 'off' them between basho -- you gain the effect while you're
training, not directly while you're performing.  (Indeed, stopping using
them _during_ competition is the most elementary step in trying to avoid
detection.)

But given that sumo is a strength event, and has no drug testing at all
(that I'm aware of), you'd have to imagine it's at the very least a
strong temptation.  On the other hand, considering the fuss made about
frowning at the wrong time and using the wrong hand to pick up a wad a
of cash, though, one would think that sumo would be strongly motivated
to 'self-police' on the drug issue -- no?
[EndPost by Alex Ferguson <abf@cs.ucc.ie>]