Palesha Goverdhan missed out on the opportunity to win Nepal's first ever Paralympic medal after she lost her women's K44 below 58 kg weight category repechage bronze medal final to China's Li Yujie at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games on Friday.

Goverdhan had earlier lost to Beth Munro of Great Britain 21-8 in the round of 16 but re-energised her hopes winning two repechage contests but fell short against the Chinese in the bronze medal match.

This is also the first occasion any Nepali athlete has won a match at either Olympic or Paralympic Games.

The 17-year-old taekwondo player, who was born without a palm on her right hand, defeated United States' Brianna Salinaro 10-0 and Marija Micev of Serbia 23-15 to book a bronze medal bout with Li.

Li lost round one 4-2 but bounced back to win round two 5-0 to win the bout 12-9 to deny Goverdhan a shot at making history. The third round was tied at 5-5. Li had earlier overcome Micev in the 23-17 in the round of 16 before losing her semi-final to Munro 34-25.

Brazilian Silvana Fernandes also won the bronze beating Gamze Gurdal of Turkey 26-9 in another repechage bronze medal final match.

Fernandes had lost her semi-final bout to Lisa Gjessing of Denmark. The Danes went on to beat Munro 32-14 in the final to win gold.

Goverdhan, the winner of the historic bronze medal at the 2018 Asian Para-taekwondo Open Championship in Vietnam, had missed the qualifiers due to the Covid-19 pandemic but had earned a wildcard for Tokyo.

She was the only representative from Nepal to compete at the Tokyo Paralympics.