SASUKE 13

Intro
The thirteenth tournament, official name: SASUKE2004春 (literally SASUKE 2004 Spring), is the first tournament after Nagano Makoto's near miss of Kanzenseiha in SASUKE 12 and the ninth tournament after Akiyama Kazuhiko's Kanzenseiha. Due to the near miss, major changes were made to the tournament, starting even before the tournament started at all, as the biggest Trials were held, having a total of 224 competitors competing for Top 30 + Top 10 woman positions to received an automatic bid to the tournament, with the rest were judged by the producers as usual. With Yamada Katsumi's absence, Yamamoto Shingo became the only competitor to hold the Perfect Attendance record (his record still stands until today, although he had once announced the retirement from the tournament in SASUKE 28, but he broke it).

The tournament's major changes were clearly seen on First Stage, as the colour of the mats was changed from green to black and every obstacle (except Tarzan Jump) was either new or modified. The modified Jump Hang took out several top competitors and the new Nejireta Kabe took out Akiyama Kazuhiko, who in the previous tournament had only narrowly missed out on getting a second attempt at Final Stage. Still, ten competitors cleared First Stage, with Nagano being the most impressive, blitzed through the stage and cleared with 29.03 seconds left, more than double the time of the second fastest finisher.

In Second Stage, the first five competitors failed in various failures and time outs. For example, Yamamoto almost cleared the stage, but his foot was trapped by Wall Lifting's third wall and ran out of time. However, the last five competitors all cleared, with these five were coincidentally the Top Five in the Trials. Interestingly, the success rate of Second Stage (50%) was lower than that the previous tournament, where ten out of eleven competitors cleared despite being no changes to the stage or time limit.

In Third Stage, four out of five competitors failed at different obstacles. Takeda Toshihiro failed at Cliffhanger Kai due to his injured right shoulder. Shiratori Bunpei made it to the landing mat of Pipe Slider, but lost his balance and falling into the water. Interestingly, each competitor who failed at Third Stage went one obstacle better than his predecessor (the only time this happened in SASUKE), with Iketani Naoki failed at Body Prop, Kobayashi Masaaki failed at Curtain Cling, Takeda failed at Cliffhanger Kai, and Shiratori failed at Pipe Slider. On the other hand, Nagano cleared Third Stage for the third consecutive time, joining Ōmori Akira who did the same achievement in the first three SASUKE tournaments. However, Nagano fell short of Kanzenseiha for the third straight time (this time, the time ran out just before he could reach the button).

Obstacles
① ^Prism See-Saw プリズムシーソー

② *Sandan Rolling Maruta 三段ローリング丸太

③ ^Cross Bridge クロスブリッジ

④ *Jump Hang ジャンプハング

⑤ ^Nejireta Kabe ねじれた壁

⑥ *Soritatsu Kabe そり立つ壁

⑦ Tarzan Jump ターザンジャンプ

⑧ *Rope Climb ロープクライム

Time Limit: 80 seconds

Length: 85.5 m

^ Denotes New Obstacle * Denotes Modified Obstacle

Obstacles
① Chain Reaction チェーンリアクション

↓ Brick Climb ブリッククライム

② Spider Walk スパイダーウォーク

③ Balance Tank バランスタンク

④ Gyakusō Conveyor 逆走コンベアー

⑤ *Wall Lifting ウォールリフティング

Time Limit: 70 seconds

* Denotes Modified Obstacle

Obstacles
① Rumbling Dice ランブリングダイス

② Body Prop ボディプロップ

③ ^Curtain Cling カーテンクリング

④ Cliffhanger Kai クリフハンガー改

⑤ Pipe Slider パイプスライダー

^ Denotes New Obstacle

Obstacles
① Spider Climb スパイダークライム (12.5m)

② Tsuna Nobori 綱登り (10m)

Results
第13回大会 第13屆極限體能王