The 34-year-old double leg amputee from Nottingham claimed a superb but surprise victory in the men's 200 metres T42 event in a Championship record of 25.88sec.

It was a stunning result from the long distance specialist but Whitehead admitted that some of the gloss has been taken off his performance after it was confirmed he would miss the marathon today.

There were four marathons at the World Championships for the T11, T12, T46 and T54 disability classes but the IPC stated the T42 world record holder was ineligible to compete in it any of them due the fact that he did not specifically fit into any of the classes.

"The marathon is the event that I love and hopefully that situation gets rectified in the near future before London 2012," Whitehead told insideworldparasport.

"With the classification, maybe they need to look at how they can include more athletes because sport is about inclusion and creating opportunities for disabled people to compete at the highest level.

"I think if you look at some of the field events at these World Championships, they are cross classification events and if you look at others, there are only five or six people competing in them.

"They should be more open.

"So I'm not sure where the thinking is behind that, especially as I was going into the T46 race [for athletes that have a single above or below elbow amputation or impairment] with the fifth fastest time.

"The issue for me personally is that I'm in marathon shape, I've trimmed down and I'm ready to race so I'm obviously going to be extremely disappointed.

"After my success on the track, it was a bit of a downer not to be doing it.

"A lot has been said about my participation in it so to not be getting a chance to showcase myself on the road is a shame.

"I don't want to put pressure on anybody to do anything within sport but like I say, sport for me is about inclusion.

"All I want to do is go out there and run and I hope that if the general public see that a guy with an impairment is running a marathon, it might inspire them to go out there and get fit too."

Despite the blow, Whitehead revealed that his surprise success in the 200m event means that the sprint distance will become more of a focus for him although it will not mean that he alters his training significantly.

"The 200m obviously gets more important for me now that I'm world champion and that London 2012 is on the horizon but I'm not going to alter my marathon training because it is obviously working," he said.

"I do a lot of sprint training with my coach Liz Yelling to help my endurance anyway so if I keep working hard at that, it will help my times come down over the 200m and stand me in good stead for a medal at London 2012."

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