For years, promoters of sumo wrestling have been pushing for the sport’s inclusion in the Olympic Games. To get there, the International Sumo Federation has thrown its weight behind a form of the game that would offend purists and surprise most everyone else: women’s sumo. Sumo officials have long tried to get their sport, for years identified with giant men slapping each other in the ring, into the Summer Games. But when the International Olympic Committee declared in 1994 that single-sex sports could no longer qualify as candidates for the Games, that was enough to turn tradition on its head. Since then, sumo has been coming into its own internationally as an equal opportunity sport. Such a radical change to Japan’s ancient national sport did not come easy, and the initial push came from outside the country. Among those who lobbied the I.F.S., as the sumo federation is commonly known, was Stephen Gadd, the general secretary of the European Sumo Union and president of the Netherlands Sumo Federation. Men’s sumo started gaining a following internationally in the mid-1980s as part of a campaign by Japan to spread its culture internationally. More than a decade later, women’s sumo started gaining followers as the I.F.S., which oversees 87 member nations, started pushing for a women’s version of the sport. Nowadays, girls can even go to high school or college on a sumo scholarship. And there are women-only tournaments, like the All-Japan Women’s Sumo Championships, which took place this month in Osaka. — NY Times