Meet Japans’ first, and possibly only, Egyptian sumo wrestler

Mansoura native Abdulrahman Shalan is the world’s first sumo wrestler of Egyptian and African descent. Known in the ring as Osunaarashi, or Great Sandstorm, Shalan started out as a bodybuilder before he came to discover sumo. His journey was far from easy, as “to realize his dream, the young Egyptian [had to] clean the gym and the dishes for a long period of time,” before his “unyielding obedience and hard work” paid off and allowed him to enter a world that is mostly exclusively reserved to Japanese natives. Today he is an elite sumo competitor. Le Monde has the story.