Australian rowers win women's four gold at Tokyo Olympics

TOKYO - Australia beat its own Olympic best time to win the rowing women's four gold at the Tokyo Olympic Games here on Wednesday.

The Aussie rowers Lucy Stephan, Rosemary Popa, Jessica Morrison and Annabelle McIntyre survived a late scare from Team Netherlands to cross the line first in six minutes and 15.37 seconds, a huge improvement from their previous Olympic best time of 6:28.76.

Dutch rowers Ellen Hogerwerf, Karolien Florijn, Ymkje Clevering and Veronique Meester finished in 6:15.71 for the silver.

Aifric Koegn, Eimear Lambe, Fiona Murtagh and Emily Hegarty won the bronze for Ireland in 6:20.46.

The Chinese quartet of Lin Xinyu, Wang Fei, Qin Miaomiao and Lu Shiyu finished fifth.