The 19-year-old swimmer, who won gold for Ireland in the S14 100 metres backstroke at the London 2012 Paralympics, set a new global best of 2 min 5.88 sec in the S14 200m freestyle at the British National Para Swimming Championships while on the comeback trail from a broken wrist.

Firth, who also won S14 100m backstroke silver at the 2014 World Championships in Montreal, has now switched to the Great Britain team from Ireland.

Other nominees include Russia's Stanislav Chokhlaev, who enjoyed a 100 per cent record in biathlon and cross-country skiing in December at the season opening World Cup event in Tyumen.

The visually impaired athlete was joined at his home event by guide Oleg Kolodiichuk. 

Also put forward is Belgium's wheelchair tennis ace Joachim Gerard, who defeated Japan's world number one Shingo Kunieda twice at the NEC Masters.

His first victory ended his opponent's hopes of completing an undefeated season, and to add insult to injury he went on to beat the Japanese player in the final to win the title.

Canada's ice sledge hockey player Tyler McGregor is another nominee after helping his country to victory at the Torino 2015 tournament, netting ten goals in five games to end proceedings as the competition's leading scorer.

Completing the list is French sailor Damien Seguin who finished 2015 undefeated in the 2.4mR class.

He won his fourth Para World Sailing Championship title in Melbourne during December, and also edged out Australia's Matt Bugg to win the World Cup just a week later.

Nominations are compiled after submissions by National Paralympic Committees (NPCs) and International Federations (IFs) and the public select the overall winner using a poll on the IPC's website.

December's vote closes on January 21 and you can make your choice here.

Iranian archer Zahra Nemati won the prize for November after winning the women's individual recurve title at the Asian Para-Archery Championships in Bangkok.