Takanohana Kōji

Takanohana comes from a family with a great sumo history, sometimes called the "Hanada Dynasty." His uncle Wakanohana Kanji I was a yokozuna from 1958 to 1962, and his father Takanohana Kenshi had held the second highest rank of ōzeki for a then record 50 tournaments from 1972 to 1981. Upon his retirement his father established the training stable (heya) Fujishima stable. The young Kōji Hanada had been practicing sumo since elementary school and won the equivalent of a yokozuna title in junior high school. Upon his graduation in 1988 he formally joined his father's stable. His elder brother Masaru had been planning to complete high school but dropped out so as not to lag behind his brother. ==Early career==

Takanohana and his brother made their professional debuts together in March 1988, with future rival Akebono also beginning his career in the same month. The two brothers had to move from the family quarters in the stable and join the communal room with all the other new recruits. They were also instructed not to refer to their parents as "father" and "mother" any more but as "oyakata" and "okamisan" (coach and coach's wife). Kōji initially wrestled under the name , and it was understood that he would only be allowed to adopt his father's shikona of Takanohana (meaning noble flower) when he reached the rank of ōzeki. In January 1992, he became the youngest ever top division tournament champion (19 years 5 months). Interest in sumo rose to its highest level since the era of Futabayama in the 1930s, ==Promotion to yokozuna==

Now known as , he was also the youngest ever to be promoted to ōzeki at 20 years 5 months. With the foreign born Akebono as sumo's only yokozuna, there was a great weight of expectation on Takanohana to make the next step up. They insisted that two consecutive championships were required, having demanded the same of Akebono before his promotion. ==Yokozuna career==

1995–1997 Takanohana's total of seven tournament championships by the start of 1995 was the same as the total won by Akebono, who had reached the yokozuna rank two years before him. Sumo rules prevent wrestlers from the same heya meeting in regular tournament bouts (playoffs excepted) which meant Takanohana avoided not only his brother and Takanonami but also sekiwake Akinoshima and Takatōriki. He pulled out of the March 1998 tournament as well and was still below his best in May. Shunning the traditional treatment methods available from his stable, he turned instead to a physical therapist called Tashiro Tomita, who had a considerable influence over him. Takanohana recovered to win the July and September 1998 tournaments, and was runner-up that November. In 1999, however, he was even more badly affected by injuries, including a dislocated shoulder, Takanohana regained some of his consistency in 2000, although he was temporarily sidelined by an elbow injury suffered in the July tournament. His brother had retired in March, and several other members of his stable were now past their best. Takanohana finally returned to the ring in September 2002, after the Sumo Association declared he must compete or retire. He finished behind Musashimaru on 12–3, the 16th time he had been a tournament runner-up. Considering how long he had been away, it was seen as an impressive comeback. However, he sat out the next tournament with a recurrence of the knee injury. He made another comeback in January 2003, making a late decision to compete. A shoulder injury caused him to miss two days, and after suffering successive losses to Dejima and Aminishiki he announced his retirement. Junichiro Koizumi, the Prime Minister, was among those paying tribute. The ceremony, and the party held afterwards at the Imperial Hotel, were both broadcast live on Fuji TV. ==Fighting style==

Takanohana was largely a yotsu-sumo wrestler, favoring techniques which involved grabbing his opponent's mawashi or belt. His preferred grip was migi-yotsu (right hand inside, left hand outside his opponent). His most common winning kimarite by far was yori-kiri, a simple force out, which accounted for 52 percent of his victories. He also regularly employed uwatenage, or overarm throw, and this was the technique he used to defeat Asashōryū in the second of their two meetings, in September 2002. ==Retirement from sumo==

in March 2005 After his retirement he became an elder (or member) of the Japan Sumo Association. Because of his great achievements in sumo he was given a bonus of 130 million yen and was also made a "one generation" elder without having to purchase a share in the Association. Its last sekitori, Takanonami retired shortly afterwards. During 2008, he added four new recruits to his stable, the first for several years, bringing the total number of wrestlers in his charge up to ten. These include his first foreign recruit, a Mongolian with amateur sumo experience named Takanoiwa, and two twins. In July 2012 Takanohana produced his first sekitori level wrestler when Takanoiwa was promoted to the second highest jūryō division. He won the jūryō championship in January 2013 and a year later was promoted to the top makuuchi division. Takanohana also coached Takakeishō, who reached the top division in January 2017. Takanohana became a judge of tournament bouts in February 2004, only a year after his retirement, a role for which elders normally have to wait at least four years. After the election of the Association's Board of Directors in February 2008, the Association appointed Takanohana as , replacing former yokozuna Chiyonofuji who was elected to serve the Board as a director. For an organization that tends to follow seniority over achievement in its organization appointment, it was highly unusual for them to place a 35-year-old to such an influential position. However both former yokozuna, Kitanoumi and Chiyonofuji whom Takanohana is often compared to, served a stint as Associate Manager of Judging prior to their becoming the Board director. In February 2009 he was moved from the judging department to the jungyō (regional tour) department, a less high-profile position. Takanohana mentioned in October 2009 that he was interested in running for a spot on the Board of Directors in the February 2010 elections, and confirmed in January that he would stand, despite the fact that this would mean opposing the two officially sanctioned candidates of the Nishonoseki ichimon or group of stables. As a result, Takanohana and six of his supporters, Ōtake (the former Takatōriki), Futagoyama (the former Dairyū), Otowayama (the former Takanonami), Tokiwayama (the former Takamisugi), Ōnomatsu (the former Masurao), and Magaki (the former Wakanohana II) left the Nishonoseki ichimon. Takanohana told a press conference, "I will leave the faction. I bid farewell to everyone in my greetings at the meeting. I have stepped into the race as a candidate." The first contested elections since 2002, they took place by secret ballot on February 1, and Takanohana was elected to the board, replacing Ōshima. Seen as a reformer, he favored revamping the current ticket sales system and improving support for ex-rikishi, as well as encouraging sumo in primary schools, raising the pay of gyōji, yobidashi and tokoyama, and making public the Sumo Association's accounts and assets. His victory was praised by the Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who said Takanohana had let in "a new wind of change." In 2014, the JSA made the decision to recognize the Takanohana group formed from the stables ousted in 2010, as an official ichimon. In July 2010, in the wake of a scandal involving several wrestlers admitting to illegal gambling, he denied he had connections with members of the yakuza underworld after media reports that he was seen with a mobster during a visit to Ehime Prefecture to recruit new apprentices. Following the election of Hanaregoma as the new head of the Sumo Association in August 2010, Takanohana returned to the judging department as director of judging. At 38 he was the second youngest director of judging in the history of the Sumo Association. The following month he and his wife were awarded ¥8.47 million in damages by the Tokyo High Court over 13 articles published by the Shukan Gendai and Gekkan Gendai in 2004 and 2005 concerning match-fixing allegations and the controversy over his father's inheritance. He left the judging department once again in 2012 and became the director of the Osaka tournament. Having reached a peak weight of as an active wrestler, he has lost a great deal of weight since his retirement (more than retired wrestlers typically do) and is now around . In 2009 he published a book detailing his weight loss methods. He ran for the chairmanship of the Sumo Association in 2016, but was defeated by Hakkaku Oyakata (ex-yokozuna Hokutoumi). Following this he was replaced as General Enterprises Director, seen as the third highest position in the Association's hierarchy, by Kagamiyama Oyakata, and became the jungyo (regional tour) director. Takanoiwa affair and resignation Takanohana was criticized for his delay in notifying the Sumo Association that Takanoiwa would miss the November 2017 tournament because of injuries allegedly sustained in an assault by the yokozuna Harumafuji at a restaurant in Tottori Prefecture in late October. Takanohana reported the incident to the police but did not submit a medical certificate for his wrestler until near the start of the tournament. An editorial in the Nikkei Asian Review compared his actions to "an executive withholding from top management information that could rock the company." Sumo writer Chris Gould said Takanohana was under fire for breaking sumo's code of secrecy by going to the police, whereas "in most other sports he'd be lauded as a whistleblowing hero." It was announced after a meeting of sumo elders on December 1, 2017, that Takanohana would only talk to the Sumo Association's crisis management team once the police investigation was concluded. On December 28 an emergency meeting of the board of directors recommended unanimously to dismiss Takanohana as a director for failing to promptly report Takanoiwa's injuries to the Sumo Association, and for failing to co-operate with the investigation. Their recommendation was certified by a meeting of Sumo Association councilors and external members on January 4, with Takanohana demoted two rungs in the hierarchy. He failed to gain re-election to the board in the February 2018 elections, receiving only two votes in the ballot. The Takanohana group had selected Ōnomatsu Oyakata (the former sekiwake Masurao), as their preferred candidate and he was duly elected, but Takanohana decided to run as well. In March 2018 Takanohana was demoted again, to the lowest rank of toshiyori, due mainly to the behavior of his wrestler Takayoshitoshi, who was suspended for one tournament for punching his attendant in the dressing room after a match. He returned to the shimpan or judging committee. On September 25, 2018, Takanohana announced his resignation from the Japan Sumo Association, after refusing to disavow the allegations in a letter of complaint that he filed with the Cabinet Office on March 9 over the Association's handling of the Takanoiwa affair. Although he withdrew the letter later that month following Takayoshitoshi's misbehavior, in August the Association demanded that he disavow what he wrote as "totally false", but he refused. He also announced that Takanohana stable will be dissolved with its wrestlers transferring to Chiganoura stable. He called his decision "agonizing and gut-wrenching" but said he could not "bend the truth and say that what was in my complaint was untrue." The JSA in response denied pressuring Takanohana to do this, or to align his stable with an ichimon, and spokesman Shibatayama said they had not yet accepted his resignation as Takanohana had not used the correct documents. They accepted Takanohana's retirement, and the closure of Takanohana stable, on October 1, 2018. He received 10 million yen for retirement and bonuses, and has been allowed to use the name "Takanohana" outside of the sumo world. In a press conference on May 19, 2019, Takanohana announced he would be establishing the Takanohana Dojo organization to promote sumo worldwide. He also ruled out any suggestion that he would enter Japanese politics. ==Relationship with family==

The Hanada family had generally received very positive press coverage while Takanohana and Wakanohana were active wrestlers, with the press holding them up as the ideal Japanese family and tending to ignore any splits between them. Their different attitudes towards both sumo philosophy and the outside world had been noted, with Takanohana being regarded as somewhat aloof and reserved and Wakanohana having a warmer personality. However, upon their father's death from cancer on May 30, 2005, a bitter rift between the brothers was widely reported in the Japanese media. Takanohana felt he should be the chief mourner at the funeral as he had remained in the Sumo Association whilst his brother had left to become a TV celebrity, but the role went to Wakanohana as the elder brother, as is traditional. However, with their father reported to have left no will, it was suggested that the feud revolved around control of his estate. Takanohana also condemned his mother for her extramarital affair, which led to her divorce from his father and exit from the stable in July 2001, and had only been rumored up to that point. She has now reverted to her old name of Noriko Fujita and published a book and appeared on TV, revealing details of life as a stablemaster's wife that are seldom heard outside the sumo world. Takanohana has rarely spoken to her since. In June 2008 he spoke of his distress at the news that she had been named as a defence witness in a civil lawsuit brought by the Sumo Association against the tabloid magazine Shūkan Gendai over allegations that his father benefited from a thrown match for the championship in 1975, saying, "she will essentially be fighting against me." He said he would take responsibility by resigning from the Sumo Association if she took the stand. In a radio interview Fujita said she would not testify, saying, "I will not drag my child down". ==Marriage==

In late 1992 Takanohana announced his engagement to actress Rie Miyazawa, news which sparked a similar amount of coverage to the Japanese royal wedding held that year. His son Yuuichi is a shoemaker and radio personality who is married to the daughter of former sumo wrestler Fujinoshin. It was reported in November 2018 that Takanohana and Kono had divorced. In September 2023, Takanohana's management office confirmed that he had married another woman in August 2023; the new spouse's identity was not disclosed. ==Career record==