LONDON — The 10:33 a.m. elimination match in women’s judo, 172-pound-plus category, was unremarkable, just another quick bout on the assembly line of judo matches that took place throughout Friday morning. That is, it was unremarkable, athletically speaking.


Historically, politically and socially speaking, it was another thing altogether.


“In white,” the announcer declared, as the two judokas walked into the arena, “the first woman ever from Saudi Arabia, Wojdan Shaherkani.”


It did not take long for Shaherkani, a 16-year-old from Mecca, to become the first woman to compete at the Olympics for Saudi Arabia. One minute 22 seconds into the match, Shaherkani’s opponent, a 28-year-old Puerto Rican named Melissa Mojica, ranked 13th in the world, cleanly executed a technique called a side-drop, in which she dropped to the floor and pulled Shaherkani down over her leg. When Shaherkani hit the mat, it was registered as an ippon, judo’s equivalent of a knockout.


“I’m excited and proud to be representing my country,” Shaherkani said in a statement released after the match. “Unfortunately I lost, but I’ll do better next time.”


Her compatriot Sarah Attar, an 800-meter runner who was reared in California, will be competing next week. But it was Shaherkani who was first to break the barrier.


That Saudi Arabia would send women to compete at the Olympics was in doubt just weeks before the Games began, and only came about after an internal debate among the country’s highest officials, as well as significant outside pressure. The inclusion of Shaherkani and Attar, along with the inclusion of female athletes from Qatar and Brunei, marked the first time every country sent at least one woman to the Olympics.


“We are very proud of her being a woman in the Olympics,” said Hani Kamal Najm, the president of the Saudi Arabia Judo and Taekwondo Federation. “Certainly it’s a good start, and hopefully it will progress from here onward.”


For all the triumphant talk, and the unquestionable significance of the moment, questions lingered about the event throughout. Shaherkani, who was taught by her father, is only a blue belt in judo, and there have been doubts raised in the press as to whether such an inexperienced woman should have been allowed to participate in Olympic judo at all, regardless of her nationality. And there were still other questions about her inclusion, the most notable, and recent, being whether she should have been able to fight wearing a hijab, or head scarf.


This debate was not as simple as it might sound. Judo is so particular about dress that its rule book has a section on yarn count, and a head covering seemed to present safety issues in a sport with so much grappling. But this week the Saudi and international judo federations agreed to let her compete with the hijab, claiming “a good balance between safety and cultural considerations.”


It was barely noticeable on the mat.


The scene afterward could not have stood in greater contrast to the contest it followed, with scores of international journalists pressing in to interview young Shaherkani, who, while occasionally smiling brightly, seemed not to know what to make of the crush of attention.


The press zone was so crowded with reporters that extra staff had to be brought in from other events and journalists had to be warned not to lean too heavily on the barriers and risk smothering their interview subjects.


As the journalists craned their necks to see the woman of the hour, a hulking man walked by in tears, as did Mojica, the victor, stopping only briefly to talk to some Spanish-speaking news media. She told them that she was happy that Shaherkani was able to compete and that religion did not matter to her at all when she was out on the judo mat.