Nikolenko scooped the award after claiming double gold at the Lignano Masters last month, the first Factor 40 world ranking tournament of the season.

He beat off competition from Egyptian powerlifter Sherif Othman, who also enjoyed a great deal of success in March as he broke the world record three times at the recent IPC Powerlifting World Cup in Dubai.

During the World Cup event, Othman, a double Paralympic champion produced a final lift of 210 kilograms, which is more than three times his body weight, and beat the previous record by a huge 16kg.

The Ukrainian achieved 37 per cent of the vote to Othman’s 27 per cent, and also nominated was French Alpine skier Marie Bochet, Dutch cyclist Alyda Norbruis, New Zealand alpine skier Corey Peters and British swimmer Bethany Firth.

Nikolenko was in dominant form at the Lignano Masters tournament as he breezed through the group stages in the men’s class seven singles event and he reached the final by virtue of a comfortable victory over Germany’s Thorsten Schwinn.

That win set up a meeting with compatriot Mykhaylo Popov and Nikolenko endured little difficulties as he secured the title with a 11-7, 11-2, 11-8 success.

The two Ukrainians then came together to compete in the team event, and the duo took gold thanks to a commanding 3-0 triumph over Germany in the final.

The Allianz Athlete of the Month award is voted for by the public, and nominations are compiled from submissions by International Federations and National Paralympic Committees.

Previous winners of the prize so far this year include American skier Andrew Soule, who made history by becoming the first US athlete to win five medals at the IPC Nordic Skiing World Championships on home snow in Cable, Wisconsin as he scooped January’s award.

February’s winner was Dutch snowboarder Chris Vos after he claimed two gold medals at the IPC Para-Snowboard World Championships.