Maeda competed 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. 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. 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.