Mizuki Matsuda Going for Tokyo Worlds In Osaka : "I'm Going to Give It Everything That I Still Have"
A year out from her disappointing finish at the 2024 Osaka International Women's Marathon , 29-year-old Mizuki Matsuda (Daihatsu) returns to race it again this Sunday. "A place on the Tokyo World Championships team is on the line," she says. "I'm running to try to get name on the list." Last year Matsuda finished 3rd , her first time not winning it in 4 Osaka Women's starts and putting an end to her dream of making the Paris Olympics. Matsuda couldn't follow when Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) took off at halfway. "There goes my Olympics...." she says she thought as she watched Maeda pull away. Post-race she immediately started thinking about retiring, telling herself, "You put up a good fight." But 2 weeks later when she appeared as a special guest at the Ehime Marathon the words of encouragement she got from the mass-participation runners there spoke to her. "I'd never realized that I was an athlete that so many people cared ...