Sunday Sumo: Actuarial Standards and Sumo Stats
Updating the height-weight graph... and somebody's height increased over an inch?!
Last week, I had the new sumo tournament top rankings height-weight graph updated… but it wasn’t quite right. The new rankings were updated, but the weigh-in hadn’t occurred yet.
But even odder things were yet to be afoot.
New graph for the September 2023 tournament
This one is a bit messier than the prior one… and there are some questions to be had.
Ch-ch-ch-changes!
Here’s the Japanese version of the rankings and the height/weight table, with the change in kilograms noted, via r/SumoMemes:
At the bottom, it also lists the 5 tallest, 5 shortest (I will get to that in a moment), the 5 heaviest, and the 6 lightest.
To be sure, one expects changes in weights between tournaments:
The decreases and increases are par for the course.
A little suspicious…
But the height changes?!
One centimeter difference is not a huge amount, plus or minus either way. Especially since they’re recording to the nearest whole cm.
But the 3-centimeter disparity — which is Midorifuji — who HAD been the shortest of the Makuuchi wrestlers — is a bit suspicious. What’s going on?
Actuarial Standards on Data Quality — ASOP 23
Just as I take the opportunity to mention sumo, even when it’s not called for… I will bring up actuarial standards, even when people didn’t ask.
And ASOP 23, which is on Data Quality, is on of my top 3 … and you don’t need to be an actuary to follow its guidance:
3.1. OVERVIEW
Appropriate data that are accurate and complete may not be available. The actuary should use available data that, in the actuary’s professional judgment, allow the actuary to perform the desired analysis. However, if significant data limitations are known to the actuary, the actuary should disclose those limitations and their implications in accordance with section 4.1(b). The following sections discuss such considerations in more detail.
I talked more about ASOP 23 in this linked video from March 2020 (hmm, was something interesting re: data going on then?), a podcast episode on Death and Data, and this article regarding data fraud from November 2021.
Okay, I’m not doing actuarial analysis on sumo stats, but the point is this: there is something hinky in this 3cm increase in Midorifuji’s recorded height. His birthday is Aug 30, 1996 (ooh, just had a birthday! Happy Birthday!) — he just turned 27. I doubt he grew about an inch recently.
So, I would like to know if this happened:
Or, something like this:
I’m going to assume no.
Or maybe it was something like this:
(It’s easy to see what the problem is here)
Anyway, here is Tobizaru vs Midorifuji from March:
Which one looks taller to you?
Hmmmm.
