The 34-year-old "blade runner" is widely renowned as a marathon specialist and holds the world record for double-leg amputees with a time of 2 hours 42min and 52sec which he set in Chicago last October.

Whitehead, who also holds the leg amputee half-marathon world record of 74min 59sec, which he set in Reading in March last year, is still scheduled to compete in the men's T44 200 metres in Christchurch, but despite training for the T46 marathon, the IPC have stated he does not, at present, qualify.

A spokesperson for UK Athletics told insideworldparasport: "UKA have entered Richard Whitehead for the marathon on more than one occasion and failed to have it accepted, but we can't do anything more now other than support his management team to challenge the IPC, which they're doing in a fair and legitimate way.

"Richard's lawyers are presenting a case to the IPC as we speak - they're not challenging the classification ruling but the way the rules are applied.

"The IPC rule book specifies that any athlete can compete 'up a class' if they're eligible

"However, in New Zealand, the qualification criteria stated that each event could be contested by 'eligible classes' and for the T46 marathon this included T45s and T46s only [Richard is a T42].

"Now that they've been challenged, the IPC are stating that the event rules supersede the IPC rules."

The news is a blow to the Nottinghamshire athlete, who represented Britain at the Turin 2006 Winter Paralympic Games in ice sledge hockey, as the ruling could also mean that he misses out on competing in the T46 marathon at the London 2012 Paralympics which, he has constantly reiterated, is his ultimate goal.

However, Whitehead's agent Rob Woodhouse claimed that his athlete, who is currently at the British team training camp in Auckland, is the consummate professional and fully focused on his own training for the Championships which are due to open on January 21.

Woodhouse told insideworldparasport: "Richard is a top class professional and an extremely positive person and he won't let these issues affect him when he competes.

"As it stands, he is still in full training for both the T44 200m and the T46 marathon in New Zealand and we are still hopeful that he will be able to compete in both.

"It is probably more likely that a final ruling will be made after New Zealand so it may be that he won't compete in the T46 marathon in Christchurch, but obviously a key focus for us is having Richard eligible to compete in the event at the London 2012 Paralympics and he fully deserves that opportunity.

"We are hopeful the IPC will be able to reverse their decision and they have been very cooperative so far, but we are prepared to go through the Court of Arbitration for Sport if that is the only option remaining to us."

A spokesman for the IPC said: "The IPC is aware of the case brought to us by Richard Whitehead's lawyers and this is ongoing.

"The reason why Richard is not eligible to compete in the marathon in Christchurch is because there is no marathon event for his sport class.

"The qualification criteria for the 2011 World Championships which were published in 2009 set out clearly what the eligible class would be for each medal event.

"This stated that the classes were T11, T12, T46 and T54 - not T42 which is Richard's class.

"Moving up a class only makes sense if the disability is similar, such as T11, T12, T13.

"It does not make sense when the methods of impairment are different or affect different regions of the body.

"Therefore there is no single argument to consider a below-leg amputee (T42) to compete 'up' a class with arm amputees (T46)."

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