Chiyoōtori Yūki

Early life and sumo background

As a youngster and student, Kinoshita was active in swimming and also judo, in which he has a black belt. However, he also participated in sumo less regularly, and in his sixth year of primary school he reached the best sixteen in a national children's amateur sumo tournament. He had visited a Kokonoe stable event in Kyūshū in his primary school years, and his older brother Chiyomaru was already a wrestler with the stable, so upon his graduation from middle school an invitation was arranged through intermediaries and he joined his brother as a member of this stable.

Career

He joined Kokonoe stable in May 2008. He did well from this period, recording all winning tournaments. However, in November of this year he suffered a cruciate ligaments rupture. This serious injury forced him to miss most of the next several tournaments, but he was back in full form by the July 2009 tournament. He was back to his winning ways and after a 6-1 in his first tournament back in the jonokuchi division, he took the championship in the following September 2009 tournament in jonidan with a 7-0 perfect record. It is a tradition that Kokonoe wrestlers adopt a ring name on their promotion to sandanme division. Kinoshita did this, and also following the additional Kokonoe tradition that its wrestler's ring names begin with Chiyo, he took the ring name of Chiyoōtori. He would struggle for a year and a half in sandanme but on his promotion to the third division makushita in January 2011 he found his stride, taking mostly winning tournaments.

In November 2011 in the tournament in his home prefecture of Kyūshū, he had a 6-1 record and participated in a three-man playoff for the championship, losing only in the very last playoff match to rival Senshō. In the subsequent January 2012 tournament, he would repeat exactly the same feat, a 3-man makushita playoff, only losing the final bout to future top division wrestler Jōkōryū, then known as Sakumayama. Though he lost both playoffs, these two tournament records and playoffs were more than enough to propel him into the salaried ranks of jūryō for the March 2012 tournament. He was the first wrestler since the former Wakanohō in the November 2006 to achieve jūryō promotion in his teens.

He spent a little over a year in jūryō, alternating winning and losing tournaments, including the November 2012 tournament where he had to drop out due to injury after logging 7 wins. He bounced back from injury and achieved two 10-5 records in the January and March tournaments of 2013. His first promotion to the top division makuuchi in May 2013 would be short lived, as he managed only a 6-9 record at maegashira 14 and was relegated back to jūryō. He would soon find his footing again, and in his third tournament back in jūryō in November 2013, he took the championship at the rank of jūryō 2.

Chiyoōtori was promoted to makuuchi for the second time in the subsequent January 2014 tournament. Coincidentally this was the same tournament that his older brother Chiyomaru would win the jūryō championship. An impressive record of 10-5 at maegashira 12 would elevate him to the rank of maegashira 5 for following March 2014 tournament, the same tournament at which Chiyomaru would get his own first promotion to the top division. In this tournament Chiyoōtori received a 9-6 record guaranteeing promotion to a higher rank and Chiyomaru would receive an 8-7 in his debut. This was the first time that two brothers had both been in makuuchi at the same time since May 2008, and the first time brothers had both achieved winning records in makuuchi since May 2007. In the following tournament, Chiyoōtori made his san'yaku debut at the komusubi rank. He managed a 5-10 rank and though this would lead to a demotion, it is actually considered a decent record by many for a debut at such a challenging rank: komusubi are usually expected to be matched against all the higher ranked san'yaku wrestlers. He has not yet managed to return to san'yaku however, and he was injured during the May 2015 tournament and had to withdraw, resulting in demotion to jūryō. After a 9-6 record in July, he returned to the top division for the September 2015 tournament. He slowly moved up the rankings and had reached maegashira 4 by September 2016, but withdrew with a recurrence of an old knee injury on Day 11, having already lost nine of his first ten bouts.

Fighting style

Like his brother, Chiyoōtori favours pushing and thrusting techniques (tsuki/oshi) over those that involve grabbing the opponent's mawashi or belt. Yori-kiri (force out) and oshi-dashi (push out), the two most common kimarite in sumo, account for sixty percent of his career wins.