Yokozuna Kakuryu suffered his first loss of the Autumn Grand Sumo Tournament at Tokyo's Ryogoku Kokugikan on Wednesday, Day 11, leaving fellow yokozuna Hakuho as sole leader of the tourney.
Kakuryu lost to ozeki Tochinoshin (7-4), who powerfully lifted the yokozuna into the air before forcing him out of the ring. It was just the ozeki's third win in 25 career meetings between the two.
After a couple of false starts, Hakuho leveled ozeki Takayasu with a mighty forearm at the jump-off, literally knocking him onto his backside and dropping him into the group with two losses with fellow ozeki Goeido and No. 13 maegashira Takanoiwa.
Meanwhile, sekiwake Mitakeumi's bid for promotion to ozeki effectively vanished as he was knocked down and out of the ring by No. 1 maegashira Kaisei (5-6) for his fifth loss.
At best, the sekiwake can only accumulate 10 wins in the tourney. This would give him a combined total of 32 in this and the previous two tournaments, which would leave him one win short of the unofficial criteria of 33 for promotion to ozeki.
Yokozuna Kisenosato, who took a key eighth win on Tuesday, lost to sekiwake Ichinojo (4-7), who cannot afford to lose any more bouts if he is to avoid demotion.
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