Lively wrestler Tobizaru, whose name means “flying monkey”, had earlier lost his long bout with Takayasu and thereby his own shot at the trophy, but he was rewarded for his efforts over the five days with the outstanding performance award.
His opponent Takayasu, a repeated runner-up but never a winner of one of the six major tournaments held each year in Japan, received the fighting spirit award.
But the biggest cheer of the afternoon was reserved for Ura, whose popularity in Japan appeared to have made the trip with him, as he picked up both the technique award for his amazing throws and the audience favourite award, voted for online over the five days.
While the sold-out London tournament has given sumo some rare international airtime, the sport now goes back to Japan and its long-running struggle to find new recruits. There are now about 600 wrestlers in the professional setup, well down from a peak of around 1,000 in the early 1990s.
Before the wrestlers all walked out waving to the crowd, the higher-ranking of the two grand champions, Onosato, kept his English nice and simple in a final farewell on behalf of all of them: “London is great. Thank you and see you again. Goodbye.”
