Height 1.89 m (6 ft 2 ⁄2 in) Stable Otake Debut January, 2012 | Weight 158 kg (348 lb) Current rank see below Name Osunaarashi Kintaro | |
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Born Abdelrahman Alaa Eldin Mohamed Ahmed Shalan
February 10, 1992 (age 32)
Dakahlia Governorate, Egypt ( 1992-02-10 ) Highest rank Maegashira 1 (November, 2015) | ||
sunaarashi kintar the first sum wrestler from the middle east nippon com
Ōsunaarashi (大砂嵐金崇郎) (born February 10, 1992 as Abdelrahman Shalan) is a sumo wrestler from Egypt. He is the first pro sumo wrestler from the African continent. Ōsunaarashi, whose chosen ring name translates into English as "great sandstorm", rose quickly through the unsalaried ranks, gaining the interest of Japanese media and popularity among sumo fans. Ōsunaarashi was promoted to the top tier makuuchi division for the November 2013 tournament. He emerged victorious from his first two matches against yokozuna ranked wrestlers in July 2014. He is the most senior ranked wrestler in his stable.
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Osunaarashi: "The first from the Middle East/Africa region to the elite makuuchi division."
Early life and sumo background
Shalan was born in the Dakahlia Governorate, near Cairo, Egypt. He was raised in the suburbs of Giza and as a youth showed an interest in bodybuilding. Through an acquaintance, he became involved in amateur sumo at the age of sixteen. In 2008, he won the silver medal in the sumo championships in Estonia, and the following year won the gold medal in an amateur championships in Bulgaria. In 2010 in earned a bronze medal at the World Junior Championships in Estonia. He entered university as an accounting major, but still felt drawn by his love for sumo. He decided to come to Japan in August 2011. He tried out at a number of sumo stables, and was eventually accepted by Ōtake stable. He accompanied the stable to tournaments and exhibitions as an observer while learning Japanese and procuring his visa.
Career
Ōsunaarashi was allowed to participate in maezumō in the January 2012 tournament, and he debuted as a professional sumo wrestler in the following May tournament in Ōsaka at the rank of jonokuchi 5. He took the yusho or championship in this tournament with a perfect record of 7-0. He missed his first day of the next tournament in July 2012 due to a phlegmon inflammation, but was able to recover and return to the tournament to win all but one of his remaining bouts. From the September tournament onward he was very successful, never posting more than two losses in a tournament. In the May 2013 tournament he was promoted to a career best rank of makushita 7 and with a 7-0 perfect record took his second championship procuring his promotion to the salaried ranks of jūryō for the July tournament. Many sumo wrestlers struggle after reaching this professional ranks, but two consecutive 10-5 tournament records in this division earned him promotion to the highest ranked makuuchi division for the November 2013 tournament.
At the rank of maegashira 15 he came just short of a winning tournament at 7-8 in his top division debut. He managed to avoid demotion to jūryō for the following January 2014 tournament and achieved a strong 9-6 record. He sat out one match due to injury in the following March tournament, but still managed a winning record overall. Following a solid 10-5 performance in May, he was promoted to maegashira 3 for the July tournament. On the fifth day of the Nagoya tournament, in his first ever match against a yokozuna, he picked up a kinboshi for defeating Kakuryū. He then beat yokozuna Harumafuji on the very next day.
Ōsunaarashi reached his highest rank to date of maegashira 1 at the November 2015 tournament, and earned his third kinboshi with another upset of Harumafuji on Day 2. However, was hospitalized after the tournament, and pulled out of the following tournament in January 2016. Ōsunaarashi was relegated to jūryō for the March tournament and dominated the division, taking the championship with a 13-2 record to secure an immediate return to makuuchi. After suffering a recurrence of a knee injury, he withdrew shortly before the start of the July 2016 tournament in Nagoya. He was again relegated to jūryō for the September tournament and withdrew with a groin injury on the sixth day, although he returned on Day 9 and completed the tournament finishing with six wins. In November he missed two bouts after suffering further injury problems but his nine wins were enough to see him promoted back to the top division. The January 2017 tournament saw Ōsunaarashi come back to the top division at East "Maegashira" #16, things looked good starting out as he won the first three days, however Ōsunaarashi then lost the next 11. Though he was able to get a win on the final day, he finished with a 4-11 record which put him back down in jūryō. March 2017 saw Ōsunaarashi at East "jūryō" #7 where he was able to go 10-5 causing him to be in a three way playoff for the jūryō championship, however he was defeated by Toyohibiki.
Fighting style
Ōsuna-arashi's profile at the Japan Sumo Association lists his favoured techniques as tsuki/oshi, or thrusting and pushing. His two most common winning kimarite in his brief career to date are yori kiri (force out) and tsuki dashi (thrust out). He is known for the power of his right arm in particular.
Ring name
Ōsuna-arashi's ring name, beyond the obvious sandstorm reference, is also taken from his surname Shalan, as the second and third characters, can also be pronounced 砂 ("sha," meaning "sand") and 嵐 ("ran," meaning "storm"), respectively. The first kanji of 大 (pronounced "ō" or "dai," meaning "big") comes from the ring name of his stablemaster, the former Dairyū. His second name of Kintarō was chosen for two reasons; because his stablemaster thought he should have a very Japanese-sounding name to offset the fact he was a foreigner and as a reference to the character from folklore, Kintarō, who was said to have been so strong as to wrestle bears and beat them.
Personal life
He is a practicing Muslim. This, among other things, means he must observe Ramadan and fast during this period. It has been reported that he finds this especially challenging as wrestlers are expected to eat heartily and train hard everyday, especially in their younger years, to build up bulk. When tournaments coincide with Ramadan, he has admitted this makes his tournament appearances at this time more challenging as he has to train and wrestle on an empty stomach.
In June 2016 he became a tourism ambassador for his native country, to encourage Japanese people to visit Egypt despite political upheaval.