The 33-year-old (pictured top), who suffers from cerebral palsy, enjoyed a superb British Open Swimming Championships in Sheffield last month.

Competing in the S1 class, he broke the world record in the 100 metres freestyle with a time of 2min 20.61sec, before repeating the feat in the 200m freestyle in a time of 4:57.79.

It was a sign that the Paralympic Games double gold medallist from Athens 2004 will be a threat in London this summer.

He missed Beijing 2008 because of an incident he was involved in on the eve of the Games when his car went off the road into a crowded bus stop and killed two people.

He was convicted of negligent homicide in July 2010, but was spared a prison sentence because of his severe disability, sparking outrage in Israel.

Mamistvalov was instead sentenced to serve 400 hours community service and was also ordered to pay $15,000 (£9,000/€12,000) compensation to the families of his victims.

But he hopes to put that behind him for London 2012.

"I have not yet achieved what I wanted," said Mamistvalov.

"I feel very much at home in Great Britain.

"I like to be at home - here, I can break records."


Mamistvalov finished with 37 per cent of the votes cast on the IPC website, finishing ahead of Brazilian visually impaired sprinting sensation Terezinha Guilhermina (pictured above).

Canadian wheelchair racer Josh Cassidy, British counterparts David Weir and Shelly Woods, and French wheelchair tennis star Stéphane Houdet were others in contention for the award.

April was also the first month this year that the winner of the award was not Russian, following the previous success of Nordic skiers Roman Petushkov and Nikolay Polukhin, and wheelchair curler Oksana Slesarenko.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]