The Canadian Press

Chantal Petitclerc's gold medal in the 1,500-metre wheelchair event at the world track and field championships won't show up in the official standings.

And she has no idea why.

The Montrealer, 37, won the event in a time of three minutes 37.10 seconds on Saturday and heard O Canada played in Nagai Stadium. She then took a victory lap to applause from the near-capacity crowd.

However, the wheelchair event is considered a demonstration sport so Canada's medal tally officially remained at one.

"It is still an exhibition event and we feel we have been exhibiting this sport for a long time," Petitclerc said. "And we don't know what more we can demonstrate or exhibit. We have been here for a week and the athletes respect us and the crowd loves it so I don't know what the problem was."

She had no problems in her race. Petitclerc took the lead from Switzerland's Edith Hunkeler on the last lap and was never in danger of relinquishing it.

As she powered down the home straight to victory, the world 110-metre hurdles champion, Xiang Liu of China, turned away from his victory ceremony to applaud each of the wheelchair competitors.

Hunkeler hung on for second behind Petitclerc while Jessica Galli of the United States took third.

"The race went according to plan," Petitclerc said. "We had to keep it cool not go in front as it's not a fast track.

"So I went to play it strategic. I wanted to win the gold and go hard the last 400 metres, which is what I did."

Diane Roy of Hatley, Que., finished sixth.

In other results, Edmonton's Tim Berrett, 42, finished 19th in the 50-kilometre race walk.