The former Ballarat Grammar School student and her Australian rowing teammates were sent straight to hotel quarantine in Sydney, where they watched the second week of the Olympics.

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The usual celebrations that an Olympic gold medal brings were subdued this year due to the COVID-19 situation in Tokyo and Australia.

However, the 2009 Head of the Lake winner said she felt the love and support throughout and after the Games.

"It was a weird Olympics in the fact that we didn't have any of our family or friends who would usually come over to watch us," she said.

"I think social media ... we're so lucky to have that in the fact that I could get videos of little preppies at Grammar watching my race and cheering me on and same in Nhill.

"Being able to see that it's really, really special."

Since the Olympics finished, Ballarat Grammar has added a congratulatory sign to its watersports centre in honour of Stephan.

"It's a huge sense of pride. Grammar is where I kind of fell in love with the sport, when I was rowing out of that club that's where I found my spark and my love for the sport," Stephan said.

"To have that there, it means a lot, I guess it's bursting with pride in the sense that hopefully it can inspire someone who's rowing out of there now to maybe follow in my footsteps."

Stephan had planned to visit the school on her way back from her home town of Nhill, but was prevented from doing so by Victoria's lockdown.

She hopes to make an appearance at the school when restrictions ease.

"Hopefully everyone can get their vaccines and soon enough we'll be out of this lockdown and I can head back to Grammar and chat to the kids and go back to the place where I fell in love with the sport,' she said.

"I got a week (before lockdown) where I could get back to Nhill and go to the schools there and see most people there."

The post-Olympics experience has been up and down for Stephan.

The team flew directly to Victoria after quarantine and once Stephan tested negative, she was free to return to Nhill.

After a week stop off, she headed to her partner's property at Nagambie before lockdown began.

She said the down stretch that athletes feel after the high of the Olympics had been testing at different stages.

After five years of preparation, intense training for a specific goal and international racing, the Olympics seemed to come and go in a flash.

"Talking to the girls and people I row with, regardless of your result, you have such high highs and the low lows will come after it as well," she said. "What goes up must come down."

She highlighted an Instagram post from former Olympic athlete Brooke Neal which outlined what she wished she was told as an athlete post-Olympics.

"You have been in this bubble, your own little world, with 10,000 athletes who are at the top of their game. You have poured blood, sweat and tears to get there, but you weren't really prepared for the day after. For the week after. For the months after this huge spectacle," part of Neal's post said.

Stephan said it was an adjustment returning from the Olympics.

"I think it's definitely been tricky and I think it's been tricky for all Olympians. It wasn't just four years for us, it was five years," she said.

"The other really hard thing is missing your mates and being surrounded by people who have the exact same goal as you and want to achieve the exact same thing and all being on that same page.

"You'd wake up and have a bad day but you'd go to the shed and someone would be having a good day and so that helps you lift up."

General exercise has been something Stephan has done, something Neal's letter encouraged athletes to do, without the pressure of hitting times or specific targets.

COVID affecting job prospects and the ability for Stephan to participate in some enjoyable training with her home club Melbourne University has made the transition more difficult.

"The biggest thing is that everyone else is feeling this too, the sense that you do feel so alone," Stephan said.

"There's about 450 people in Australia right now who are probably feeling the exact same way as I am.

"It's that sense of making a phone call and reaching out."

Stephan has not made a definitive decision on whether she will compete at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

She said it seems unlikely that she will compete internationally in 2022, but she will see what happens in 2023 and 2024.

"When you do have such a high high, it's very easy to be like 'oh sweet, let's go do that again'," she said.

"But it is also remembering it's very hard to get that high high... the training's excruciatingly hard, it's three sessions a day, pretty much six days a week... and also it's living up in Penrith, which is away from my family and my boyfriend.

"The fire's still definitely there, so it just depends if that fire is burning enough.

"My biggest thing is being able to sit back and watch it on the TV and know that if I was in that boat, I couldn't make it go faster.

"When I'll step away is when I know that I don't have anything to give, or my body's not going to hold up or mentally I just can't push myself to those places anymore."

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