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Australian rowers Annabelle McIntyre and Jess Morrison missed the chance to go for gold in the women's pair in Tokyo but made no mistake in Paris.

Australian rowers Jess Morrison and Annabelle McIntyre are channelling Tokyo heartbreak as they chase a gold medal in the women's pair in Paris.

Morrison and McIntyre set up an enthralling medal race on Friday where they will look to take down Dutch world champions Ymkje Clevering and Veronique Meester, who are the pace-setters in the event.

The green and gold rowers had to scrap for their semi-final win, coming from behind in the last 500m to topple Team USA by 1.45 seconds.

In the other semi-final on Thursday morning at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium the Netherlands led from start to finish and crossed the line over four seconds clear of the field.

The Australians were happy with their performance, which gave the rowing team a boost after four boats missed medal races this week.

"Semi-finals are really interesting races, you've got nothing to lose, or everything to lose, basically," said West Australian McIntyre.

"When they (USA) went out, we just had to stay calm and try and push through because we wanted the win."

In Tokyo the women were attempting a rare feat in Olympic rowing, winning medals in two different boat classes at a Games.

They achieved their first goal, clinching gold along with Lucy Stephan and Rosie Popa in the coxless four.

With strong winds forecast due to a tropical storm Tokyo organisers rescheduled racing, throwing the Australians' race plans out the window.

Instead of 24 hours between the women's four final and pair semi-final they only had two and a half.

It proved too tough with the duo fading in the final metres to miss the medal race by 0.34 seconds.

Morrison, from Melbourne, said she told McIntyre to remember that painful moment.

"I think I said something on the line like, remember this time," the 32-year-old said.

"I never want to feel like that again, and it's just reminding yourself of that feeling and it's like ... this is our moment, don't put yourself in that position again. 

"It is definitely powerful to tap into those kind of memories and it helped us today."

The men's pair, the women's four, women's quad sculls and the women's double sculls - with Amanda Batemen and Harriet Hudson considered outside medal chances going into the Games - have all failed to make the A final.

The highly-rated men's and women's coxed eights both have to contest the repechage to make the blue riband medal race.

McIntyre said while they felt for their teammates they couldn't absorb too much emotion.

"We're coming up to three months overseas together now, so we spend a lot of time together," the 27-year-old said.

"But it's also really important to empathise with them and then come back to yourself or bring yourself back to your own race."

The first rowing medals were decided on Wednesday with the Netherlands winning the men's quad sculls and Great Britain taking gold in the women's.