The competition at the Eissportzentrum Erfurt will see athletes compete in men’s and women’s events ranging from 500 to 1,500 metres.

Daniel Greig of Australia will be among the favourites in the 500m event thanks to an excellent personal best time of 34.64sec.

He is likely to be pushed all the way by China’s Jiaxuan Xie and Kjeld Nuis of The Netherlands, who have the joint-second-highest personal best times of the athletes in the 500m category.

Anice Das of The Netherlands is far ahead of the competition in the women’s 500m with her personal best of 37.84 almost a second ahead of her rivals.

Das is also likely to be among the medals in the 1,000m but will be closely challenged by China’s Nan Sun,

One of the other headline names at the event in Germany will be Russia’s Denis Yuskov.

Yuskov, cleared of any doping infactions by an International Olympic Committee Oswald Commission, will compete in the 1,500m where he has a personal best of 1min 41.02sec.

Canada will be sending a strong team to Erfurt in all events, including Alex Boisvert-Lacroix, winner of two gold medals in the 500m event at the last two World Cup competitions.

Their preparations for the competition, though, have been overshadowed by a scandal which has seen coach Michael Crowe leave the team"until at least after the Olympic Games" as he is under a Speed Skating Canada investigation.

The event is due to start tomorrow and will conclude Sunday (January 21).