Meggan Dawson-Farrell eats, sleeps and breathes wheelchair curling - and now there are only 50 sleeps to go until she can finally take to the ice at the Winter Paralympic Games.

The 29-year-old from Tullibody will join Hugh Nibloe, Gregor Ewan, David Melrose and alternate Charlotte McKenna at the Beijing National Aquatics Centre in March as they look to add to the 1,000-plus medals achieved by British athletes since the advent of National Lottery funding to elite sport in 1997.

Dawson-Farrell swapped wheelchair racing for curling after representing Scotland at the 2014 Commonwealth Games and with the clock to Beijing 2022 rapidly ticking, believes she has found a sport for life.

“I have no idea what I would be doing, I don't want to think what I would be doing if I wasn't doing this,” she said.

“I love it that much that I don't want to be doing anything else. I don't see anything else, I eat, sleep, breathe curling and I wouldn't want it any other way.

“That's the thing with curling, there is no age limit as to how long you can go for, I could be going for multiple years.

“I would love to say that I could go on for multiple cycles because I absolutely love it.”

Dawson-Farrell is one of over 1,000 who are able to train full-time, access the world’s best coaches and benefit from pioneering technology, science and medical support thanks to vital National Lottery funding.

The funding from The National Lottery allows the team to come from all corners of Scotland to train together - something she was unable to experience in the individual sport of wheelchair racing.

She added: “For me, it's the team aspect. I've gone from a sport where it was just myself going round a track into a sport where there's multiple other athletes as part of the team and I just love being part of a team.

“As a group, we are actually all quite separated in different areas of Scotland, so every few weeks we get together as a group for training and we wouldn't be able to be in our training environment if it wasn't for The National Lottery.

“They support us with some funding, and that allows us to bring our full potential in our training and allows us to get the training under our belt to then go into competitions and give it our best.”

No one does more to support our Olympic and Paralympic athletes than National Lottery players, who raise more than £30 million each week forgood causesincluding grassroots and elite sport. Discover the positive impact playing the National Lottery has at www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk and get involved by using the hashtag: #TNLAthletes