Unlike many sports, the sumo calendar can be predicted months, even years in advance.
The start and finish dates of the six annual tourneys are pretty easy to work out when you know basho almost always start on the closest Sunday to the 10th of the month, and end 15 days later — also on a Sunday.
Periods of intense training and morning practice before each tournament therefore can be similarly predicted with one exception — the training period in the weeks prior to the Hatsu Basho held every January. Thanks to the annual tendency to take the foot off the pedal for a few days over New Year, stables let their rikishi travel to hometowns for varying lengths of time as the old year winds down.
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