Whitehead retained his 200m T42 title but was forced to settle for silver over half that distance, finishing in a dead heat with Denmark’s Daniel Wagner in a race won by Reardon.

Speaking at SPORTELMonaco here, where he is on the jury of the Golden Podium Awards, the 40-year-old Briton did not hold back in his assessment of Reardon, admitting his dislike of the Australian provides the perfect motivation to continue his long career on the track.

Whitehead also accused Reardon of having a selfish attitude and not doing enough for the development and promotion of the Paralympic Movement, while laying down the gauntlet for another duel at next year’s Para-athletics World Championships in London by claiming the Australian was "on a downward spiral".

"If I had won that race I might have just retired right then and gone out on a high," he told insidethegames here.

"I’ve still got an energy to continue, also I am not a massive fan of the Australian athlete Scott Reardon, I just don’t think he promotes sport how it should be.

"That gives me the fire in the belly that I need to continue.

"I’m not scared to put it out there as I think sport is about the competiveness within sport and I think too many events are very furry and fluffy and there is lots of respect and friendship between athletes.

"When you get out on the court, in the pool or on the track you don’t want to be friends with them - you want to beat them.

"I’m 40 and am still getting better and hopefully I have got more time to improve and beat somebody that is on a downward spiral like Scott is - i’d like to do that."

Whitehead cited Reardon’s attitude towards Paralympians having Olympic Ring tattoos - which the Briton has - as another reason for the fractured relationship between the pair.

In a post on Instagram ahead of the Rio 2016 Paralympics, which was accompanied with a picture of the Agitos logo, Reardon, 100m silver medallist at London 2012 and a two-time world champion, wrote: "If you are a proud Paralympian, and want to get a tattoo to remember what you have done and what you have been a part of, this is the logo you would get, not the Olympic Rings".

It came after British Paralympian Josef Craig was disqualified from a race at the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) European Swimming Championships in May after failing to cover his tattoo of the Olympic Rings.

It was found to be in breach of an IPC rule regarding body advertisements.

"I think he likes to pick the negatives out of the athletes, like some of the articles he has written lately about athletes who have Olympic rings as a tattoo, which was very disrespectful," Whitehead added.

"Sometimes he thinks about himself more than the Paralympic Movement and that his event is more about him winning than anything else and I just don’t like him."