SOCHI - China's job of defending the women's 500m short track speedskating title at the Sochi Winter Games suffered a major blow here on Thursday as twice world champion Fan Kexin lost her semifinals surprisingly to an unforced error.

With all three Chinese short trackers racing the same group of four in the semifinals, the 20-year-old world No. 2 stepped on a ice bug just two laps after start and stumbled out, hardly in the way of teammate Liu Qiuhong before she rushed into the protecting wall aound the rink.

Fan, who took the event's world title in 2011 and 2012, was on her Olympic bebut here in Sochi.

The Heilongjiang native was offen referred to as the "Shadow of Wang Meng", her slightly more successful teammate and the defending champion and record holder of the Olympic women's 500m short track, who failed to make the Chinese delegation to Sochi due to an ankle injury.

Li Jianrou, former world champion of the women's 1,500m in 2012, came out the only Chinese earned a berth in later Thurday's final of the event after the 27-year-old finished seminfinal 2 with a time of 43.841 seconds, trailing Britain's Elise Christie at 0.004 seconds.

Other finalists include South Korea's Park Seung-Hi and three-time Olympian Arianna Fontana from Italy. Teenage sensation Shim Suk Hee of South Korea was disqualified from the quarterfinals after competing alongside Li Jianrou and Fontana in a four-athlete heat.