Japan came to a halt yesterday as the nation gave a cautious welcome home to Asashoryu, the volatile sumo grand champion who fled Tokyo three months ago disgraced and depressed.

On the surface at least, it was a very different man that returned from seclusion and convalescence in his native Mongolia. Gone were the swagger and sneer that enchanted fans and infuriated the elders of sumo. In their place was the appearance of profound contrition and what the wrestler described as “new feelings of calm”.

He left Ulan Bator in an opulent fur coat. But in Tokyo, wearing a sober grey kimono and speaking in staccato sentences, Asashoryu struggled to explain the incident that toppled him from sumo’s highest pedestal: his appearance in a charity football match wearing a Wayne Rooney shirt.

It was not the game that caused the uproar, but the extraordinary acrobatic leaps that the 23-stone (148kg) titan made on the pitch. Only days before the match, he had bowed out of a big summer sumo tournament citing an array of medical problems.

“I have caused everyone a great deal of trouble over this extended period and would like to offer my heartfelt apologies,” he said, facing the Japanese press for the first time since his meltdown. “Being back in my home town in Mongolia among family and friends was the good medicine to treat my stress.”

Although his sincerity was doubted by the Japanese sumo press, it was a comeback performance that the Japan Sumo Association desperately needed. The sport is suffering from scandal after scandal, shedding viewers fast and finding it hard to recruit new wrestlers.

For all his hot-blooded instability, sumo would be a bleaker place without the unbeatable Mongolian.

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