[citation needed] Akimoto emerged as one of Japan's top female sprinters while still a high school student in the mid-1970s.

At the 1975 Japan international indoor meet, she was second in the 50 metres, beaten only by two-time Olympian Mamie Rallins of the United States despite the two sharing the same time.

[4] After losing the national title to Tamie Motegi in 1978, her breakthrough year came in the 1979 track and field season.

[3] She was her country's leading hurdles entrant at the 1979 Asian Athletics Championships, held on home turf in Tokyo, and won the gold medal with a championship record of 14.17 seconds, comfortably ahead of China's Dai Jianhua and her compatriot Motegi.

[8] She then teamed up with Emiko Konishi, Hiromi Isozaki and Junko Yoshida to form the Japanese women's 4×100 metres relay quartet.

This was almost two tenths of a second faster than runner-up Liu Huajin of China, who would go on to win the title herself two years later.

[11] She made her final contribution to the Japanese record book with a time of 7.19 seconds for the indoor 50 metres hurdles in 1986.