Sumo Down Under

[jac@powerup.com.au (Greg Lund)]

Greetings fellow sumo fans.

I have just been introduced to this service by a fellow Australian, Louise
Kinneard, of Melbourne, who tracked me down in Brisbane, where I live and
work. I can now claim responsibility for succeeding in getting the first
ever Sumo exhibition tour to Australia in June next year, after having
spent a great deal of time and energy over the best part of three years
twisting the arms (figuratively) of Sakaigawa - mostly while he was still
Dewanoumi - and certain of his colleagues in the Sumo Association.

It has been a bit of a marathon, and we still have a few kilometres to go,
but to all intents and puroposes the deal is now done. A delagation led by
Kitanoumi has been down to Australia and approved stadiums, hotels, and
general infrastructure, invitation letters from the Premiers of the States
of Victoria and New South Wales have been received and responded to
formally by Sakaigawa, dates have been set, and a formal public
announcement was to have been made in Tokyo on 10 August by the Australian
Prime Minister, with a morning o-keiko session organised at the Kokugikan
(because of the Hokuriku and Hokkaido jungyo schedule, none of the heya are
operating normally at present) followed by the announcement and an "Aussie
Beef" barbeque. Unfortunately, the PM had to cancel his trip because his
wife became ill, and we are still trying to re-group and work out what we
should do instead. We can't wait till his trip is re-scheduled, because we
have a massive PR exercise to get under way to ensure we'll convince enough
people about Sumo, which is relatively unknown here, and sell enough
tickets to make it all work financially. We have less than a year to do it
in.

Some of you might have seen a news story a few weeks ago, during Nagoya
basho,  which resulted from a leak to the Japanese media, picked up by an
alert Australian correspendent in Tokyo. It was a bit of a shame, but
didn't do any real harm. It just would have been nice to have had the
impact of all the TV and print media coverage that the PM's press entourage
could have provided.

The total tour length will be about 11 days (4-15 June), with two
exhibitions in Melbourne, followed by two in Sydney. It is possible a
yokozuna and small entourage will come to Brisbane to perform a  dohyo iri
in recognition of Brisbane's efforts to get them to come here. (Brisbane
was ruled out on population grounds, despite being judged to have the best
stadium and, because of proximity to the Gold Coast, best overall
"atmosphere").

I hope that through this Email medium I can establish a dialogue with
people who have actually seen, or been involved in, foreign Sumo tours -
and anybody else - who can offer moral support and practical advice. I am
going to need lots of it.

Just by way of brief introduction, I have been a Sumo fanatic since I first
went to Japan as a student in the late 1960s and was fortunate enough to
have seen the end of the great Taiho-Kashiwado era and, among other things,
Takamiyama's elevation to makunouchi rank.  I was back in Japan 1974-78 as
a political/economic specialist in the Australian Embassy in Tokyo, and
again 1982-85, and saw a lot of Wajima (I was a great fan pre-hand injury),
Kitanoumi and Chiyonofuji. Along the way I got to know a very talented
rikishi named Kaiketsu, who ended his career as an ozeki, who has been very
helpful to me now as Hanaregoma Oyakata. He is also the Deputy Director of
the Public Affairs Division of the Association. I resigned from our foreign
service after my second posting to Tokyo, and as the International Director
for three years of World Expo 88, held in Brisbane in 1988, I made a fairly
clumsy, and obviously unsuccessful, attempt to bring Sumo down here then.

Several others have tried, without success, and I was on the verge of
conceding defeat in March this year - having been unable to round up the
level of sponsorship necessary - when the Association, for its own reasons,
decided Australia was a good idea and agreed to help out with organising
(not paying!) the sponsorship side, which I think is a first for them. In
any case, things have moved quickly since then, and as soon as we get our
formal public announcement we'll be out there educating about Sumo as hard
as we can. Obviously we have some plans for television - regular sports
program coverage and some background documentary stuff, and talks with a TV
company are under way. A PR Agency is about to be appointed, both State
Governments are enthusiastic (well, at least one of them is!!) and I am
confident Australians will take to it.

We are pretty keen on all sports - Seventh highest medal tally at Atlanta
with a population of only 18 million says a lot about that I guess - and we
have a very high rate of Japanese language study and general interest in
Japan, which is our major economic partner.

That will do for starters. I look forward to hearing from and communicating
with many of you starting now.

Best wishes

Greg Lund

(I'm also new to Email. I hope this is sent to the right address. If not,
please tell me where I should send to in future).