New ozeki Yasushonishiki overcame the pressure of sleeplessness to win two consecutive tournaments! He is the fastest promoted and the first yokozuna in Europe!

When I approached him just before the press conference: ……

–Did you sleep well last night?

Yes, I slept well.”

When a FRIDAY reporter approached him, Ao Nishiki, 21, an ozeki from Ukraine, answered in clear Japanese. This was just before the “one-night-after press conference” held in the morning of the following day after winning the championship in the first-round of the tournament (January 25).

Yasushonishiki, who became the first new ozeki-ranked wrestler in 89 years since the Showa-era grand champion Futabayama to win two consecutive tournaments as a new sekiwake and a new ozeki, said he had been feeling pressure during the tournament.

He told his master, Ajigawa Oyakata (former Sekiwake Ami-nishiki), that he “wanted to run away from the hanamichi (the path to the ring). He said that in the final stages of the tournament, when the championship was on the line, he could not sleep for days on end. The night before the final bout of the tournament, he complained that it was hard for him to eat, so his stablemaster gave him a nutritional drink and encouraged him, telling him that he would be fine as long as he continued to wrestle as usual.

With the encouragement of his respected master, Yasushonishiki overcame the pressure that prevented him from sleeping and won the championship again. If he wins the next spring tournament (first day, March 8, Osaka), he will become the fastest ever promoted (from the first tournament ring, excluding tsukegashidashi) and the first European yokozuna in the 16-round history of sumo. He is highly motivated, and in an interview in the January 23 issue, he said, “My goal is to become the fastest yokozuna in history, and the first European yokozuna.

My goal is to become a yokozuna who is ‘even better.

Let us return to the scene at the beginning of this article. When the reporter asked Yasushonishiki, “Please do your best to become yokozuna,” he replied emphatically, “Yes, I will do my best. He was only one tournament away from his goal of becoming the highest-ranked ozeki-ranked ozeki.

From the February 13, 2026 issue of FRIDAY