Born in Shiga Prefecture, her first international medal in the event came at the 1996 Asian Junior Athletics Championships, where she took the silver medal behind India's Soma Biswas. She made her international debut two years later at the 1998 Asian Athletics Championships, finishing ninth, and returned to the competition in 2000, improving to sixth place. That year she broke the Japanese national record in the heptathlon, recording 5642 points. She improved her best further in 2001 with a score of 5862 points and gained her first national title in 2002. Nakata was selected to represent Japan at the 2002 Asian Games as a result and she ended the competition in fifth place.