Baruto: an Estonian at the summit of sumo
Kaido Höövelson (born 5 November 1984 in Väike-Maarja), ring name Baruto Kaito — “Baruto” is the Japanese name of the Baltic Sea —, is Estonia's first professional sumo wrestler: a farm boy from Lääne-Viru county who reached the summit of Japan's national sport, the rank of ōzeki and the Emperor's Cup, and later sat in Estonia's parliament.
The road to Japan
Höövelson grew up in the village of Rohu and started with judo; his judo coach steered him to amateur sumo, and with the encouragement of a Japanese sumo official he left for Japan in 2004, after graduating from the Audentes sports gymnasium in 2003. Because of the limits on foreigners, he joined the only stable with a place free — Mihogaseki. His professional debut came in May 2004: at 199 cm and a peak 183 kg, the Estonian was the first of his nation ever in Japanese professional sumo.
The climb
March 2006 — won the jūryō division championship with a perfect 15–0 record — only the fourth wrestler in history to do it.
May 2006 — reached the top division (makuuchi).
November 2008 — sekiwake, the third-highest rank.
31 March 2010 — promoted to ōzeki (the second-highest rank, just below yokozuna) after a 14–1 tournament.
The Emperor's Cup: January 2012
At the January 2012 tournament Baruto won his first 14 bouts in a row and lost only on the final day, to grand champion Hakuhō — 14–1 and the Emperor's Cup, the top-division championship. He was only the ninth foreigner and the second European (after Bulgaria's Kotoōshū) ever to win it. Across his career he earned seven special prizes: five for Fighting Spirit, one for Outstanding Performance and one for Technique.
The Väike-Maarja symmetry
Here lies one of the loveliest coincidences of Estonian sport: the Väike-Maarja parish is also the birthplace of Georg Lurich (1876–1920) — the most famous Estonian strongman of the world of a century ago. One and the same small corner of Virumaa gave the world both the wrestling celebrity of the 1900s and the sumo champion of 2012. See: Estonian sport that amazed the world.
After sumo
A chronic knee injury forced Baruto to retire on 11 September 2013, aged just 28. A third life began: he tried mixed martial arts (2015–2016: three wins, one loss), acted in the Japanese NHK drama My Brother's Husband (2018), and had already been the subject of a 2009 documentary, “Baruto — Lost in Translation”. From 2019 to 2023 he was a member of the Riigikogu and chaired the Estonia-Japan parliamentary group — a man who had bridged the two countries with his own body carried on in politics, aiming to advance Estonian-Japanese economic ties.
See also
Sources
Baruto Kaito (Wikipedia) and Kaido Höövelson (Estonian Wikipedia); ERR Sport — “Loodan, et olen enda nime ajalukku kirjutanud”; Estonian World — Sumo champion Baruto retires (2013); The Japan Times (January 2012); the Estonian Film Database — “Baruto — Lost in Translation” (2009); virumaa.ee.