Guy Dresser | Sportscene - Racing at the ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships gets underway in Duisburg, Germany on Wednesday with the paracanoe events, the first time in the current Olympic cycle that paracanoeists will strut their stuff on a world championship stage alongside their able-bodied peers.

The world’s senior flatwater canoe and kayak specialists will then be racing through till Sunday and this year’s event looks set to be a stellar event with many big names from the London Olympic Games taking part.

In fact 19 gold medalists from Eton Dorney will be racing at Duisburg, all part of a huge entry of 839 athletes from 75 countries, according to the latest figures from the International Canoe Federation.

The year after an Olympic Games is always an interesting one with some stars retiring from competition, others taking their time to get back into top-flight competition and, of course, a host of bright young things vying to take their place.

This year is no exception. Some of the sport’s biggest stars will certainly be there, including K2 200m Olympic champions Yury Postrigay and Alexander Dyachenko. [Read our interview with Yury and Alexander]

The Russian duo won both their World Cup outings in Racice and Szeged earlier this season and are going to be hard to beat. Perhaps their toughest competition will come from the British combination of Liam Heath/Jon Schofield and home crowd favourites Ronald Rauhe and Jonas Ems. The Germans have been training on the regatta lake at Duisburg over the past few weeks and the local media has already pencilled them in for a medal.

Such calculations often end in error as the margins in 200m are, of course, tiny. Ed McKeever, the British Olympic champion in singles at this distance knows that only too well, having been beaten into 4th place in May at his last World Cup outing in Racice by Serbian Marko Dragosavljevic, Cesar de Cesare of Ecuador and German youngster Tom Liebscher. The margin of defeat? Just 0.2 seconds separating the first four places.

Liebscher is racing K1 200m and 500m in Duisburg and, according to observers, is in great form. Expectations on the German team are heavy. Despite outward confidence, there are points to prove. The German team reorganised its coaching structure after what was perceived as a disappointing performance in London - the team won ‘just’ three golds, one silver and two bronzes. National coach Reiner Kiessler is apparently hoping to at least equal that performance in Duisburg which, with medals up for grabs in non-Olympic disciplines , seems eminently possible. Other German favourites include C1 1,000m Olympic champion Sebastian Brendel and K1 1,000m Olympic medalist Max Hoff, both of whom will take part this week - and both reputed to be in good form.

Hoff won bronze in London in the K1 1,000m, finishing behind Norway's Eirik Larsen and Adam van Koeverden of Canada. Larsen retired after London but Denmark’s Rene Holten Poulsen, fourth in London, is eager to make the podium in Duisburg. Four-time Olympic medalist Van Koeverden, meanwhile, is racing K2 1,000m with Brady Reardon as well as making a singles outing in the K1 5,000m event.

Another veteran of the 1,000m scene is Australian Ken Wallace, also the 2008 Beijing K1 500m champion. He’s taking part in all three singles events over 1,000m, 500m and 5,000m after achieving a 4th place in London in the K2 1,000m event - it remains to be seen how much of his old singles form he can regain.

As well as Hoff, Wallace will face competition from New Zealand’s 1,000m kayak specialist Ben Fouhy will also be in Duisburg, his 7th World Championship appearance. It’s been a close-run thing for Fouhy after he was diagnosed with viral bronchitis earlier this month. The doctors have ok’d him to race and Fouhy says he still believes he hasn’t reached his full potential - if he goes all the way to Rio he’ll be 38 by the time the next Olympic Games come around.

The Kiwis’ biggest star, however, is surely Lisa Carrington. The 200m Olympic champion opens proceedings with the K1 500m on Friday, while the 200m starts on Saturday. She’s in blistering form having won five of her six races over both distances at the World Cup regattas in May and June.

Watch out also for Michelle Russell of Canada in the K1 200m. She won the U23 World Championships in Welland, Ontario earlier this summer and, if she’s inspired, could just manage an upset in the senior competition.

Elsewhere in the women’s competition, the K4 500m looks to be a tough battle. Performances at the World Cups in May and June indicate the honours could be shared between Hungary, Poland and Belarus (who medaled in Szeged) but Germany are always dangerous in crew boats and with a home crowd to encourage them home, who’s going to bet against them? Britain may be in with a shout here, their boat was 5th in London and their rejigged crew made the podium in Racice.

The men’s K4 race is set to be the real showdown of the weekend, however. Australia’s ‘awesome foursome’, the gold medalists from London - Tate Smith, David Smith, Jacob Clear and Murray Stewart - will be racing but face intense competition. Germany is a traditional powerhouse in men’s crew boats and so are Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Belarus, Russia and Poland, all of whom have entries in this class. With a possible home advantage in the men’s K4, you can expect it to be one of the most intensely followed events of the weekend.

The World Championships will be televised by German network ZDF and live-streamed from the organisers’ website at www.kanuduisburg2013.de