Kazuhiro Maeda (Japanese: 前田 和浩; born 19 April 1981 in Shiroishi, Saga) is a Japanese long-distance runner.
He made his international debut at the 2000 World Junior Championships in Athletics, where he ran in the heats of the 5000 metres.[1] He won the Karatsu 10-Miler in 2003.[2] He was part of the Japanese men's team for the short race at the 2006 IAAF World Cross Country Championships.[1] At the 2006 Asian Games he ran in the 5000 m and came in fourth place – however, he was the best Asian-born runner in the race as all the medallists were Kenyan emigrants to Qatar and Bahrain.[3]
He compete twice at world level for Japan in 2007: he finished seventeenth in the 10,000 metres at the 2007 World Championships and then came 30th at the 2007 IAAF World Road Running Championships in Udine.[1] He made his marathon debut in 2009 at the Tokyo Marathon and he secured second place behind Salim Kipsang with a time of 2:11:01 hours. This automatically gained him a place for that year's World Championships team.[4] He finished well off the pace at the 2009 World Championships Marathon, taking 39th place and crossing the line some eight minutes behind Japan's best performer Atsushi Sato.[5]
He came third at the 2011 Beppu-Ōita Marathon as the first Japanese home on the 60th anniversary of the race and improved his personal best time to 2:10:29 hours.[6] He was the third Japanese runner to finish at the Fukuoka Marathon later that year, coming sixth overall.[7]