A SPORT that can trace its history back more than 2,000 years is facing up to a 21st-century crisis. Sumo wrestlers are feted wherever they go in Japan, but are now accused of taking performance-enhancing drugs. It comes hard on the heels of allegations of match-fixing, illegal betting, sex scandals, tax evasion and links with organised crime.

Leading sumo wrestlers are giants, who depend on a combination of power and speed to reach the highest levels, but fears that they have been taking dietary supplements and steroids are so widespread that the issue has been raised in the Japanese parliament.

Steroids have been linked to an increase in the number of injuries as wrestlers’ bodies are unable to carry the extra weight; they are also taking longer to recover from their injuries, according to the politician who first claimed that doping is rife in the sport. Kenshiro Matsunami, a member of the New Conservative Party, told a parliamentary panel in November that increased reliance on drugs has left wrestlers unable to compete in the six basho, or tournaments, that are held each year.

“Wrestlers’ average weights have increased by 40kg (6st 3lb) in the past 40 years and now they average 155kg (24st 4lb),” he said.

Matsunami’s objections are not entirely designed to ensure the wellbeing of the competitors in Japan’s national sport. “The main thing I’m worried about is that because the famous names are always injured, fewer people are turning out to attend tournaments or watching on TV,” he said. “Japanese people have always loved sumo, but now when you go to a basho there are empty seats in the stadium.

“I want the Japan Sumo Association (JSA) to ban drugs from the sport. Only then will it be able to recapture its heyday.”

The Association has taken the complaints to heart. Last week, JSA chairman Kitanoumi, a retired grand champion who, like all wrestlers, goes by only one name, announced that from this year all wrestlers will undergo drugs tests during their medical check-ups in February and October.

“Urine testing is necessary to shed light on the causal relationship between doping and injuries, as well as to protect wrestlers,” he said. “I do not believe anybody uses performance-enhancing drugs, but since the possibility has been raised by outsiders, there is a need to investigate the matter.”

There are currently no regulations banning the use of performance-enhancing drugs in a sport that hopes to win a place at the Olympic Games.

But doping is only the latest scandal to damage the reputation of a sport already reeling from accusations of matches being rigged, wrestlers illegally betting on baseball matches, marijuana smoking at sumo “stables”, tax evasion, sex scandals and close ties to Japan’s influential yakuza, or organised crime syndicates.

The public response to all of this has been apathy. As well as falling attendances, only one boy applied to the JSA to become a wrestler last year; five years ago, more than 2,000 teenagers wanted the honour of appearing in an elaborately decorated mawashi loincloth before entering the ring.

“Poor ticket sales are the root cause of the declining popularity of sumo,” said Clyde Newton, publisher of Sumo World magazine, who has lived in Japan for more than 20 years. “There are so many absences among the big names that ticket sales have plummeted. I’ve heard the rumours about doping. I don’t know if they’re true, but all this talk by politicians misses the larger picture. They don’t have any idea of the real issues facing the sport and they just like to grandstand for votes. Drug-taking isn’t the problem; they need to find a new star beyond Takanohana.”

Takanohana has been the darling of the sumo-going public for eight years, but serious leg and knee injuries forced him to miss seven tournaments before he made a half-hearted return in the New Year.

Despite the JSA’s stated desire to turn over a new leaf, there is certain to be resistance from the wrestlers. One was quoted as saying: “There are probably some wrestlers who are using steroids, but it’s not prohibited. We are not children, so it’s really up to the person if he wants to use the drug or not.”