Video: How Danielle became the first Paralympian to make the regular England team

Danielle Brown won archery gold at the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing. She is now a four-times world champion and is about to make history by becoming the first Paralympic athlete to compete in an able-bodied event at the Commonwealth Games.

But for now she would like to set the record straight and dispel a myth that has plagued her ever since she first made headlines.

"After Beijing, my mum did an interview and said it was because I loved The Lord of the Rings! It's not true, I am not and never have been obsessed with The Lord of the Rings but it's the first thing anyone ever asks me."

Consider the record now set straight, Danielle.

The 22-year-old is relaxing at her family home in Lothersdale, near Keighley, with her Yorkie dog Heidi snoozing by her side. Her easy-going manner becomes suddenly animated when conversation turns to how she got into competitive archery. So if it wasn't the capers of Tolkein's fictional Frodo and friends that inspired her to reach for the bow, how did it start?

The answer lies in a disabling condition which for the first five years that it affected her was a mystery.

"At school I loved sport, PE was my favourite lesson and I'd do every after-school activity. But when I was 11 my feet started hurting if I'd been running. In 2001, we were walking in Scotland and I just couldn't do it, I was in too much pain. Suddenly all of that activity was taken away from me.

"I'd get home, do my homework and then had nothing, which drove me nuts. I needed to find something to do. Someone on my school bus said her dad did archery at Aire Valley in Bingley and because it didn't involve running it sounded like something I could do.

"So my parents bought me a beginner's course for my 15th birthday. I was absolutely awful but really enjoyed it and it went from there."

Danielle's condition baffled the medics. Not only were her feet in constant, worsening pain but her balance deteriorated as she struggled to orientate her feet in relation to her body. Corrective surgery on one of her feet was suggested and dismissed and she tried treatments from acupuncture to kinesiology and physiotherapy to ease the pain. None was effective.

"I'd get home from school every day and cry because I'd been walking around all day and was in so much pain. I was walking like a drunk person but my friends were brilliant. I'd veer off in one direction and they would grab my arm and off we'd go again. You're going through that really horrible period growing up and I was also trying to cope with a disability I didn't have a name for."

It wasn't until she was 16, at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, that she got a diagnosis. She had Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD), a malfunction of the nervous system that causes pain and sensory abnormalities. It was a relief to finally discover what was wrong.

By this time, Danielle's archery talents were already attracting attention. Within two years of taking up the sport she won her first able-bodied national junior title and a year later had made her international disability archery debut at the Europeans in the Czech Republic, a chance meeting with Athens 2004 Paralympic archery champion, John Cavanagh, inspiring her to seek classification.

Not only was Danielle rapidly excelling at her sport, she was becoming increasingly comfortable with her disability.

"I'd been adamant I wasn't going to use a wheelchair. It felt like I'd be giving up. But getting into the Paralympic squad changed my view. I'd never really met anyone who was disabled before but everyone was so positive and seeing how they coped with their disabilities helped me coped with mine." She is now comfortable with the idea of using her wheelchair to cover longer distances.

She signed up to study for a law degree at Leicester University and in 2007, at the end of the first year, Danielle upset the odds by landing two gold medals at the world championships. What had previously been a hobby and secondary to her studies, became an all-consuming passion. The mission was to land gold at Beijing in 2008.

"I hate mornings, but I woke up everyday thinking about that gold medal and that's what got me out of bed."

No longer able to stand to shoot, Danielle had a custom-built stool developed for her at Loughborough University – "a bike seat on a tripod" – so she could be comfortably propped up during competition. She also deferred her studies from Christmas 2007 to concentrate on Beijing, a decision that paid dividends. Nine months later, she stood atop the Paralympic podium.

"I didn't do much celebrating that night. I was asleep by 6pm. I'd had a massive mental blip the day before and was so lucky my boyfriend was there because he sat telling me I could do it and to just pick up my bow and shoot. After the final I was absolutely mentally exhausted."

Ten days after returning from China she joined the Great Britain able-bodied team in Australia. Life after Beijing was a haze of award ceremonies, charity events and talks while she also sought to get her studies back on track.

She describes the past year as "a bit of a nightmare". On the personal front there was a big setback when her boyfriend, Ali Jawad, a Paralympic powerlifter, was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease and underwent major surgery in March. As she tried to complete her studies at Leicester she was also travelling three times a week to Archery GB HQ at Lilleshall in Shropshire, as well as training at Loughborough.

Nevertheless, Danielle graduated with a first this summer, having also added two more world championship golds to her collection along the way.

Despite her academic success, she says she doesn't foresee a law career beckoning just now. Her archery aspirations look towards London 2012, to Rio in 2016 and beyond. To hit those targets she is moving to Telford to be nearer Lilleshall. Danielle's event – the individual open compound – is not in the Olympics but if it is adopted she would aim to compete at both the Olympics and Paralympics. What if people argued that because she can contest an able-bodied championship she should be disqualified from competing at a Paralympics? She is genuinely taken aback at the thought.

"I've never even thought someone may think that. At the end of the day I'm disabled, I shoot from a stool, the able-bodied stuff was a goal for me but the Paralympic stuff is my main event and I love it.

"I didn't know anything about Paralympic sport when I first became disabled and I would have loved it if someone had been able to tell me what options I did have.

"Even now I don't know if the information is out there. I'm exposed

to it every day of my life so I'm really aware of it but I don't know if other people are – which would be such a shame because Paralympic sport's given me so much."

It has also given her family so much – Danielle's parents and two younger sisters Helen and Georgie all took up archery at the same year she did, and 17-year-old Georgie looks to be following in her sister's footsteps, recently winning bronze at the European Junior Championships.

Her parents, however, will not be in Delhi to see Danielle's Commonwealth Games exploits just as they missed China.

"My parents are incredibly supportive but I didn't want them in Beijing because I thought if I had a bad shot my dad would be thinking, 'What did she do that for?' That was a distraction I didn't need. As I'm getting more championship experience I'm getting more relaxed about it though."

Danielle's Commonwealth selection was a shock to her and she insists she goes to India with no expectations – her only demand is she gets to watch boyfriend Ali compete in his Powerlifting competition. A European Para-Archery Championships and an able-bodied World Cup event in Shanghai have been keeping her busy ahead of the Commonwealth Games and she is looking forward to switching off for a spell post-Delhi. If she does, she is not sure what she will do with her time, now that there's no studying to do for a degree.

"I've had no time for a hobby, so I'm going to have to get one. Georgie's really good at interior design so we're going to decorate my new home. I like baking and I'd like to learn a language."

Whichever way Danielle finds to unwind, it's unlikely to involve The Lord of the Rings.