Skip to main content

MGC Race Olympic Marathon Trials Qualifier Profile - Mizuki Matsuda

Mizuki Matsuda

age: 25
sponsor: Daihatsu
graduated from: Osaka Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S.

best time inside MGC window:
2:22:23, 5th, 2018 Berlin Marathon

PB: 2:22:23, 5th, 2018 Berlin Marathon

other PBs:
5000 m: 15:46.40 (2016) 10000 m: 31:39.41 (2017) half marathon: 1:10:25 (2016)

marathons inside MGC window (Aug. 1 2017 – April 30 2019)
5th, 2018 Berlin Marathon, 2:22:23 – PB
1st, 2018 Osaka International Women’s Marathon, 2:22:44

other major results:
10th, 2019 National Championships 10000 m, 32:37.13
2nd, 2019 National Women’s Ekiden Fourth Stage (4.0 km), 12:56
7th, 2018 National Corporate Women’s Ekiden Third Stage (10.9 km), 35:28
1st, 2018 National Championships 10000 m, 31:52.42
19th, 2017 London World Championships 10000 m, 31:59.54
3rd, 2017 Bhubaneshwar Asian Championships 10000 m, 32:46.61
1st, 2017 National Championships 10000 m, 31:39.41 – PB
17th, 2016 Cardiff World Half Marathon Championships, 1:11:00
4th, 2016 National Corporate Half Marathon Championships, 1:10:25 – PB

Matsuda was part of the Osaka Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S. team along with Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) during its rise to becoming a legit contender to win the National High School Ekiden. She graduated before they got there but went on to make an impact on the corporate ekiden scene at the Daihatsu team.

Matsuda’s big breakthrough came at the 2017 National Championships, where she won the 10000 m in a PB of 31:39.41 and made the London World Championships. In January last year, she made her marathon debut with a 2:22:44 win in her hometown Osaka. That put her among Japan’s all-time best, and she had no trouble defending her 10000 m national title a few months later. In Berlin last year Matsuda took 21 seconds off her best with a 2:22:23, the fastest women’s inside the MGC Race qualifying window.

But since then she hasn’t had the same kind of spark, only 7th on the National Corporate Women’s Ekiden’s longest stage and 2nd on a minor short stage at the National Women’s Ekiden in January. At Nationals in May she was unremarkable, finishing 10th in 32:27.13 almost 45 seconds behind MGC Race favorite Ayuko Suzuki (Japan Post).

If she’s back to the kind of fitness she had in Berlin last summer in time for Sept. 15 Matsuda will be hard to beat. But if she hasn’t picked things up since Nationals then there’s not much chance she can make top three. In that case she’ll have to go 2:22:22, one second better than her best, in one of the big three domestic women’s marathons this winter to hit the JAAF’s standard for stealing the last place on the Tokyo 2020 team from the 3rd-placer at the MGC Race.

Final profile: Dreams unfulfilled.

© 2019 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Ngetich and Mutiso Take Down Tokyo Legacy Half CR

In its 5th edition the Tokyo Legacy Half Marathon scored 2 new course records via Kenyans from the Ikaika agency, with 10 km WR holder Agnes Ngetich blasting 3 minutes off the old record to win by over 4 in 1:04:23, and Alexander Mutiso skimming just 1 second under the CR for the win by 5 seconds in 59:51. The 2 races played out completely differently, even if the paydays were the same for the winners. Surrounded by an envelope of male runners all the way to the final 100 m, Ngetich was out hard on the downhill in the first 5 km, hitting it on sub-64 pace in 15:08 before leveling out on the flat middle 10 km. Her next 2 splits projected to 1:04:09 and 1:04:17, and even with the uphill back to the stadium in the last 5 km she didn't fall far off from that, winning in 1:04:23. Runner-up Tabitha Njeri Kamau was nearly a mile back in 1:08:28, with Kamau's Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo teammate Kazuna Kanetomo dropping a 1:10:17 PB for 3rd. Now an independent, track Olympian Kaede Ha...
2 comments
Read more

Waseda Leads Top 7 Teams Under Izumo Ekiden CR, Ivy League Best-Ever 3rd (updated)

3rd last year, Waseda University scored its first Izumo Ekiden win since 2010, taking almost 2 minutes off the CR and leading the top 7 teams under the old record of 2:07:51 for the complete 6-stage, 45.1 km course. Waseda was 16 seconds back in 7th after the First Stage, but its 2nd runner Ojiro Honda made that up easily and put them 6 seconds out front. A massive 22:56 CR for the 8.5 km Third Stage by Shadrack Kipkemei (Nihon Univ.) dropped Waseda back to 2nd even though its runner Ryuki Suzuki broke the old CR too, but back-to-back CR on the next 2 stages by 1st-year Haruki Niizuma and Shunpei Yamaguchi put anchor Shinsaku Kudo out of reach of the rest of the field. Kudo duly won the 10.2 km anchor stage in 29:00, bypassing a 2:06 time entirely for a new 2:05:56 CR, just under 2:48/km average pace for the complete course. Defending champ Koku Gakuin University struggled a bit in the first half of the race but came on strong in the longer second half with 4th and 5th runners...
8 comments
Read more

Route Inn Hotels Win National Corporate Women's Ekiden Qualifier for First Time

After Saturday's Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai qualifying race in Tokyo, 2nd-tier corporate women's teams were in Fukuoka for their own national championships qualifying race, the Princess Ekiden . With Queens Ekiden 19-placer Otsuka Seiyaku a DNS, 30 teams lined up for the 6-stage, 42.195 km race where the top 16 would go on to join the top 8 from last year's Queens Ekiden at next month's national race. Coming right in the middle of the international fall marathon season several teams had people still tired from Berlin and Chicago, with Daihatsu fielding Rika Kaseda and Natsuki Omori from Berlin, Tokyo Metro sending out its own Berlin duo of Mao Uesugi and Ayumi Morita , and Kraftia not playing its top member Yuka Akasaki after her solid run in Chicago last week. After a fast start from eventual 9th-placer Denso 's Rio Matsutani , Daihatsu took over on the Second Stage and held it until the Fifth, where a tired Omori dropped to 3rd. Mayuka Fujita from Route Inn H...
2 comments
Read more