Sumo's Unwelcome Champ -- Konishiki: U.S. Roots Denying Him Sport's Highest Honor

TOKYO - A Hawaiian who's fought his way higher up the ranks of Japan's national sport than many thought possible for a foreigner - but been denied sumo wrestling's highest honor - has struck a raw nerve with charges of racism.

"There is only one reason I could not become grand champion. That's because I'm not Japanese," Salevaa Atisanoe, an ethnic Samoan, is quoted as saying in an astonishingly frank interview.

"Strictly speaking, this is racism," Atisanoe said in Japan's leading financial newspaper.

Atisanoe, known as Konishiki in Japan, may have found a way to more easily attain Sumo's highest honor. The 577-pounder is applying for Japanese citizenship, officials said Friday.

Applicants for naturalization, a procedure which takes at least a year, are usually required to take Japanese names and display a sufficiently Japanese lifestyle to qualify for citizenship.

Earlier in the week, Konishiki was complaining about sumo officials' failure to promote him to "yokozuna," or grand champion, last month after he won his third tournament.

Japanese wrestlers have become grand champions after winning two straight tournaments. Atisanoe has not achieved consecutive wins, but apparently feels his three titles merit the recognition.

Atisanoe, 28, who is now an "ozeki," or champion, also was quoted by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun as linking the controversy to U.S.-Japan trade disputes.

Atisanoe is wildly popular and his raising of the racism issue is bound to make many Japanese uncomfortable.

The ethnically homogenous Japanese are especially sensitive to charges that theirs is a racist society, and have been forced recently to take a hard look at their treatment of foreigners.

Though many Japanese deny racism is a problem, people of Korean, Chinese and other foreign extraction in Japan complain of discrimination. Last week, Japan moved to end a controversial requirement that foreign permanent residents be fingerprinted.

The question of whether a foreigner should be allowed access to sumo's highest rank has become a hot issue in Japan.

No foreigner has ever come as close as Atisanoe has to attaining the top rank. Atisanoe is the second American to have won one of the six annual tournaments, picking up his first victory in 1989.

He won again in November, 1991, and then this March.

Aatisanoe has a large and devoted following in Japan. His lavish wedding to a Japanese model in February was televised live nationwide; rubber masks of his face can be found in stores.

Sumo has its roots in ancient Shinto religious ritual, and the rank of "yokozuna" carries with it an aura of prestige unmatched in other sports.

The rank's rites include an elaborate, 3-hour belt-blessing ceremony on the grounds of a Tokyo shrine. Some sumo fans feel it would be improper for a foreigner to be given such an honor.

The sport has, however, become increasingly open to foreigners.

Of more than 740 wrestlers, 34 are foreigners. Konishiki and two other Hawaiians - Chad Rowan and Fiamalu Penitani - are in the top division.

A wrestler hoping to become a grand champion must win two consecutive 15-day tournaments or compile a record "of equal worth."

Noboru Kojima, a writer and a Yokozuna Selection Committee member, touched of a storm of controversy when he called in a recent article for lending more weight to the dignity of grand champion candidates.

Another selection committee member, Hideo Ueda, wrote later that foreigners are not barred from reaching the sport's pinnacle and that Atisanoe has a strong possibility of promotion after the next tournament in May.