Indian wrestler Vinesh Phogat on Thursday lost to Vanesa Kaladzinskaya of Belarus in the quarterfinal of the 53kg women’s freestyle wrestling event at the Tokyo Olympics. Phogat lost the match 3-9.

Not only is Phogat now out of the gold medal race, but also faces the risk of getting eliminated. If the Belarusian does not make the final, the Indian wrestler’s Olympic campaign will end in another heart-breaking exit.

The 26-year-old Indian had no answer to the supreme defence of Vanesa, who got her revenge from the Indian at the biggest stage after suffering a similar embarrassing defeat ‘by fall’ earlier this year in Ukraine.

Phogat, who is the top seed in her category, tried all her moves in a bid to rattle Kaladzinskaya’s defence. But to no avail. Even her trademark double-leg attack, which Phogat often uses to pun her rivals, did not yield any results on Thursday.

Even when Vinesh got behind Vansea, she could not push her down on the knees from a favourable position with the Belarusian showing immense strength to keep her legs straight.

Earlier on Thursday, Phogat had knocked out Rio Olympics bronze-winner and six-time world medallist Sofia Mattsson.

Indian wrestler Anshu Malik bowed out of the 57kg competition after losing her repechage round 1-5 to Russia’s Valeria Koblova, the Rio Olympics silver medallist.

Anshu never looked intimidated by a stronger opponent and was leading the bout at one stage on criteria but towards the end, the Russian pulled off a two-pointer to nose ahead.

The 19-year-old Indian had lost her opener to European champion Irina Kurachikina but after the Belarusian progressed to the final, she bounced back to be in contention.

Ravi Kumar Dahiya (men’s freestyle wrestling – 57kg) and Deepak Punia (men’s freestyle wrestling – 86kg) will fight for gold and bronze medal respectively, in the evening session on Thursday.