The Japan Sumo Association (JSA) will distribute 60 iPads to the sport’s 51 training stables to help fat-fingered sumo wrestlers keep in touch. The iPads are intended to help the Sumo world address and move past a shocking gambling scandal by facilitating communication among JSA officials, wrestlers, and coaches. Given their size, sumo wrestlers tend to have big fingers that make it hard to type and text on the cell phones and other small mobile devices that are so popular in Japan. (Hawaiian-born Konishiki is said to have been the heaviest sumo wrestler ever in Japan at 630 pounds. Unfortunately for many of his opponents, there are no weight classes in traditional sumo in Japan.) The gambling scandal dealt a heavy blow to the ancient sport, which incorporates Shinto rituals of purity. A new movie based on the Freakonomics books by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner presents a fascinating segment on Levitt’s approach to using data on sumo match wins and losses in Japan to expose rampant cheating in the sport.
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Sources:
Fat-fingered Sumo Wrestlers Given iPads. BBC. August 25, 2010.