After an arduous escape from Afghanistan involving multiple governments and organisations and a secret stay in Paris, Zakia Khudadadi competed in taekwondo at the Tokyo Paralympic Games on Thursday.

Khudadadi, 22, appeared in the very first match of the day as taekwondo also made its Paralympic debut. She lost to Ziyodakhon Isakova, 23, of Uzbekistan, in the women’s under-49kg category at the Makuhari Messe Hall in Chiba. Khudadadi returned for a repechage round in the quarter-finals on Thursday afternoon against Viktoriia Marchuk of Ukraine, who won the match 48-34.

Khudadadi is one of two Afghan athletes who were evacuated from Kabul after the country’s government fell to the Taliban. On Tuesday, Hossain Rasouli, 26, competed in the long jump in Tokyo. He had originally been scheduled to run a 100m event but missed his race.

The chaos in Afghanistan initially imperilled the athletes’ participation in the Paralympics as they could not secure a safe flight out of Kabul. Khudadadi had travelled from Herat, her home province, and was staying with extended family in the capital. In a video requesting assistance before she was evacuated, she pleaded: “Please hold my hand and help me.”

Chungwon Choue, president of World Taekwondo, said the sports federation’s vice-chairman, Usman Dildar, was originally from Afghanistan and had helped coordinate with other organisations in Australia, France and Britain that had worked to evacuate dozens of Afghan athletes, including the Paralympians.

Choue said that he suspected that jet lag and the pressure of international media attention may have affected Khudadadi’s performance but that he was proud of her. “We are really, really happy to see her participate in the Paralympic Games,” he said.

After her final competition on Thursday, Choue met with the Afghan athlete and presented her with a black belt imprinted with her name. “She looked very tired,” he said. But when he told her to “aim for the Paris Paralympic Games” in 2024, “Finally she was smiling and saying ‘Yes, president, I will do it.’”

“I think she has a great chance after she settles down in a certain country,” said Choue, who said that several countries had offered her asylum. “If she practises, she has talent and she will do it.”

In interviews before the games, Khudadadi has said she was inspired to begin practising taekwondo by Rohullah Nikpai, the only Afghan to win a medal in an Olympic competition, with a bronze in taekwondo in Beijing in 2008 and again in London in 2012.

In an interview posted on the I.P.C.’s website, Khudadadi said she only had two months to train for the Paralympics in Tokyo. After being evacuated from Kabul to Paris earlier this month, she and Hossain trained at the National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance for a week before flying to Tokyo.

Khudadadi is only the second woman to represent Afghanistan at the Paralympic Games. Mareena Karim competed at the Paralympic Games in Athens in 2004, running a 100m event.