Sumo Wrestling

Exhibition competitions are held at regular intervals every year in Japan, and approximately once every two years the top ranked wrestlers visit a foreign country for such exhibitions. None of these displays is taken into account in determining a wrestler's future rank. Rank is determined only by performance in Grand Sumo Tournaments (or honbasho).
• Foreign participation
Professional sumo is practiced exclusively in Japan, but wrestlers of other nationalities participate. There are currently 55 wrestlers officially listed as foreigners. In July 2007, there were 19 foreigners in the top two divisions, an all-time record, and for the first time, a majority of wrestlers in the top sanyaku ranks were from overseas.
A Japanese-American, Toyonishiki, and the Korean-born Rikidōzan achieved sekitori status prior to World War II, but neither were officially listed as foreigners. The first non-Asian to achieve fame and fortune in sumo was Hawaii-born Takamiyama. He reached the top division in 1968 and in 1972 became the first foreigner to win the top division championship. He was followed by fellow Hawaii-born Konishiki, the first foreigner to reach the rank of ōzeki in 1987; and the native Hawaiian Akebono, who became the first foreign-born yokozuna in 1993. Musashimaru, born in Samoa but from Hawaii, became the second foreigner to reach sumo's top rank in 1999. The most recent yokozuna, Asashōryū and Hakuhō, are Mongolian. They are among a group of Mongolian wrestlers who have achieved success in the upper ranks. Wrestlers from Eastern European countries such as Georgia and Russia have also found success in the upper levels of sumo. In 2005 Kotoōshū from Bulgaria became the first wrestler of European birth to attain the ōzeki ranking and the first to win a top division championship.