In near-freezing winter temperatures and wearing nothing but white loincloths, throngs of men wrestle one another in a bid to a claim a talisman during Japan’s Somin-sai festival – more famously known ...

As top pros battled it out at the Autumn Basho in Tokyo last weekend, one of the world’s largest and most diverse sumo competitions for women was taking place 45 kilometers west at Tachihi Arena in ...

Sumo is more than a sport in Japan. It’s a sacred tradition, a 1,500-year-old spectacle steeped in Shinto ritual and ceremony. But at its heart lies a long-standing taboo: women are still barred from ...

TOKYO (AP) — For centuries, sumo's deep links with the Shinto religion barred women from entering the ring, let alone allowing them to participate. While women remain excluded from professional sumo, ...

This high school in Tottori is home to Japan’s largest sumo club for women. Being a wrestler, or rikishi, is a kind of quiet defiance: Professional sumo and its traditional rings, or dohyō, are still ...