Rohan received 74 per cent of the vote in the IPC's Facebook poll, ahead of British rowing star Tom Aggar, American Para-cyclist Allison Jones, Germany's women's wheelchair basketball team and Britain's men's wheelchair basketball team.

In just his third year in international competition, Rohan defended his world title in the road race, posting a time of 1 hour 31min 24sec, and raced to a personal best of 31min 03:50sec to win the time trial.

"I was absolutely delighted to retain the road world title and to win the time trial," said Rohan, an inter-county Gaelic footballer with Westmeath before he suffered serious road injuries in a road accident in 2001.

"But it also meant I had gained qualification for the London 2012 Paralympics, so it was a bonus. It was amazing."

Rohan's performance was the highlight of the Championships for an Irish delegation that also saw Colin Lynch claim gold in the C3 time trial and the female tandem of Catherine Walsh and Fran Meehan take bronze in their time trial.

"It's pretty amazing, I think, for such a small country to have two world champions," Rohan said.

Rohan has only been involved in Para-Cycling since 2007, when, as a wheelchair basketball player, he bought a handcycle to cross-train.

But, in no time, he found himself wanting to switch sports.

"As soon as I got to the bike, I just absolutely fell in love with it," Rohan said.

"I love the freedom of it. I live in the country and I love the fact you can see the countryside as a cyclist, rather than by car."

His next competitive race is not until April, so Rohan will now focus on strength and conditioning work to pass away the cold, Irish winter.

London 2012 will be his first Paralympic Games and Rohan's life now revolves around the Brands Hatch course in London, where he will be eyeing gold.

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," he added.

"I know there are five, six, seven guys there who can beat me on any given day.

"I know, especially with the Paralympics coming around, they will be training as hard as they were last year and the year before."

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