With breakthroughs achieved in the water and on the track and four more gold medals for swimming, trampoline, badminton and table tennis, Chinese athletes have maintained their strong momentum at the Tokyo Olympics as the medal-tally leader with 19 golds, 10 silvers and 11 bronzes as the Games approached the halfway mark on Friday.

At Tokyo Bay's Sea Forest Waterway, Chinese rowers won a bronze medal in women's eight on Friday, taking Team China's medal haul in the sport to three after an earlier bronze in men's double sculls and a gold in women's quadruple sculls on Wednesday.

Although Jiang Yan only settled for sixth place in the women's single sculls final, Steve Redgrave, the five-time Olympic rowing champion and high-level performance director for China's national rowing team, hailed the team's overall performance and believed China's rowers can become the best in the world.

"China has the athletes, has the resources and has some of the know-how to be the strongest rowing nation in the world," the British icon said, "And I was brought in to get them there."