Ōtake stable

Ōtake stable (大嶽部屋, Ōtake-beya) is a stable of sumo wrestlers, one of the Nishonoseki group of stables.

It was set up in 1971, as Taihō stable, by the 48th yokozuna Taihō Kōki on his retirement from wrestling. The first sekitori he produced was Shishihō in 1977. His most successful wrestler was Ōzutsu, who reached the rank of sekiwake. In May 1981 Taihō was persuaded by the editor of the English language sumo magazine Sumo World to accept a foreign wrestler, Philip Smoak of Texas, who was with the stable for just two months.[1] Taihō passed control of the stable on to his son-in-law Ōtake (former sekiwake Takatōriki) in 2003, as he was approaching the age for mandatory retirement from the Japan Sumo Association. As the name of Taihō was an ichidai-toshiyori (one-generation elder name) it could not be passed on, so the stable was re-named Ōtake. In 2004 the Russian Rohō reached the top division, but was dismissed from sumo in September 2008 after failing a test for cannabis.

In January 2010 the stable, along with the Takanohana, Ōnomatsu and Magaki stable, was forced to leave the Nishonoseki ichimon after Takanohana declared his intention to run as an unofficial candidate in the elections to the Sumo Association's board of directors. The ejected stables formed their own group, which gained ichimon status in 2014[2][3][4]. In 2018 the stable joined the Nishonoseki group.

Following the dismissal of the former Takatōriki for his involvement in a scandal over illegal betting, in July 2010 the stable was taken over by the former jūryō wrestler Dairyū, who had been working as a coach at the stable under the name Futagoyama. Its most famous recent wrestler is Ōsunaarashi, who was forced to retire in March 2018 after being caught driving without a license. As of January 2020, the stable had 15 active wrestlers.

In January 2018 the grandson of Taihō, Naya Konosuke, joined the stable.[5] Another grandson, Kosei, joined in November 2019.