Skip to main content

Matsuda and Coach Receive 15 Million Yen Bonus for Sub-2:22 in Osaka



On Jan. 27, Osaka International Women's Marathon winner Mizuki Matsuda (24, Daihatsu) received a 10 million yen [~$92,000 USD] bonus for her 2::21:47 time. The bonus was paid by the National Corporate Federation as part of its Project Exceed program. Along with Matsuda receiving 10 million yen for breaking 2:22, her coach Miwako Yamanaka received a 5 million yen bonus [~$46,000 USD].

When asked what she plans to do with the money, Matsuda smiled as she answered, "Save it. That's what everyone around me is telling me to do. And," she added with a laugh, "to watch out for guys coming after my money." While she may not intend to use the money for herself, Matsuda does plan to use some of it for her ultra-supportive mother Akemi. "I told her that I'd like to pay for her to get her teeth fixed. That costs about 700,000 yen [~$6500 USD], so she was super happy and said 'Thank you very much.'" Matsuda also plans to go visit a friend who lives in Vancouver, Canada. "I'm going there on air miles," she laughed.

source article:
https://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/202001270000257.html
translated by Brett Larner

Buy Me A Coffee

Comments

Unknown said…
I watched this race and it was an amazing effort. She was so determined and focused. I'm so glad she qualified for the Olympics (for now). It will be interesting to see if anyone can better her time in the Nagoya marathon. And I'm glad she got that prize money for herself and coach. They totally deserve it.

On a side note, does anyone know if Sairi Maeda and Hanami Sekine will be competing in Nagoya? I was gutted when they both got injured prior to the MGC Qualifying Race.

Most-Read This Week

Hakone Champ AGU Hits 50 km a Day in Spring Break Training Camp

Having scored its 3rd-straight Hakone Ekiden win this past January, Aoyama Gakuin University spent the Golden Week spring holidays training on the Myoko Plateau in Niigata from May 2-6. Along with the champion men's ekiden team, the first 2 members of AGU's new women's long distance team Nodoka Ashida and Kairi Ikeno , and AGU alumni and 2026 New Year Ekiden champion GMO team members Yuya Yoshida and Asahi Kuroda also took part in the training camp. Depending on the day's training schedule, mileage at the camp was over 50 km a day. AGU men's captain Kaito Nakamura confidently said, "This Golden Week training camp is where we lay the foundations for our 4th-straight Hakone title." A lot of people spend Golden Week on vacation, but the AGU ekiden team spent their time working hard on Myoko's rolling land amid the sprouting leaves of spring. On the 2nd day of the camp, May 3, team members woke up at 5:00 a.m. to do their warmup. The team assembled a...

Everything You Need to Know About the 2026 Hakone Ekiden

The Hakone Ekiden is the world's biggest road race, 2 days of road relay action with Japan's 20 best university teams racing 10 half marathon-scale legs from central Tokyo to the mountains east of Mount Fuji and back. The level just keeps going higher and higher , hitting the point this year where there are teams with 10-runner averages of 13:33.10 for 5000 m, 27:55.98 for 10000 m, and 1:01:20 for the half marathon. It's never been better, and with great weather in the forecast it's safe to say this could be one of the best races in Hakone's 102-year history, especially on Day One. If you've seen it then you know NTV's live broadcast is the best sports broadcast in the world, with the pre-race show kicking off at 7:00 a.m. Japan time on the 2nd and 3rd and the race starting at 8:00 a.m. sharp. If you've got a VPN you should be able to watch it on TVer starting at 7:50 a.m. on the 2nd , and again at 7:50 a.m. on the 3rd . There's even a 2-hour high...

70th Yamagata-ken Judan Ekiden

The 70th running of the Yamagata-ken Judan Ekiden happened over the start of the Golden Week holidays, a 3-day, 29-leg race covering 306.9 km around the northern prefecture of Yamagata. There used to be a lot more of these races where people from the prefecture run for their hometown teams on a Tour de Whatever prefecture or area it happens to be held in, but Yamagata's is one of the few to have survived this long. And amazingly enough, local broadcaster YBC live streamed the entire thing on Youtube. There aren't many corporate teams in the mostly rural area, so runners from the ND Software corporate team played a heavy role, its 2 best runners Masato Arao and Ryoma Takeuchi winning their stages on Day 2 with Takeuchi doubling to anchor the Kita-Murayama team to an overall 5th-place finish, and Koichi Shoji breaking the 2nd leg CR on Day 1 and winning the 2nd-to-last stage on Day 3 to play a key role in the Yamagata city team taking the overall win in 16:06:51, 3:09/km ...