But after seven months the Warrnambool athlete found a potential person to paddle with at the 2012 London Paralympic Games.

The 27-year-old conceded it was still early days but revealed multi-Paralympic cycling gold medallist Greg Ball had hit the water with her.

"We're just testing him out," Ross said.

"He's trained quite well but he's realised rowing's not as easy as he thought it would be.

"We just have to get him hooked."

The pair rowed together for the first time in April.

They will practice again later this week at a Paralympic preparation program camp in Penrith.

With Ross unable to compete as an individual at the Paralympics, she was relieved that someone had finally put their hand up to replace John Maclean - her Beijing partner and fellow silver medallist - who retired.

"It was sort of a grey area for a while because I was thinking whether to continue or not," she said.

"To get someone to John's standard is going to be very hard because he's just unbelievable but I think Greg's got the will to do it."

The duo's goal is to compete in the World Masters Games in Sydney during October.

"Everything's going well," Ross said. "I'm just trying to help him out with some things out on the water - like technique.

"It's certainly not an easy thing to pick up and I've still got a lot to learn myself." The athlete barely gets a break as she works full-time before evening training sessions.

She planned a quick visit to Warrnambool and was due to arrive in the south-west on Sunday but swine flu saw her stuck in Sydney.

"The AIS and Rowing Australia don't want athletes to go into Victoria and the ones that come back from Victoria have to go into quarantine for about seven days," she said.

"I'll get down when I can."

The last event Ross competed in was the International Adaptive Regatta in Italy in April.

"It was to show that Australia was still here," she said.

"They put me up against arms-only females and put on a handicap."

Ross took out the event, with training her focus since then.