The competition at the EnergieVerbund Arena, which concludes on Sunday (February 5), is also the first major short track event to be held since last month’s European Championships.

Athletes in Dresden will be hoping to boost their chances of overall World Cup success, while laying a marker to the rest of the field with the World Championships scheduled for Rotterdam in The Netherlands in March.

Britain’s Elise Christie is set to return to competitive action in Dresden after she opted to skip the European Championships in favour of honing her preparations for the World Championships.

The 26-year-old has never won a world title and will be hoping to pick up where she left off in Dresden after she claimed victory in both 1,000 metres events in Gangneung in December last month.

Her performance at the competition, which served as a test event for the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, saw her cut the deficit to current overall leader Choi Min-jeong of South Korea.

Christie has a total of 21,678 points, with Choi occupying top spot on 28,000.

The Briton does have another title well within her grasp as she leads the 500m standings on 35,264 points.

China’s Fan Kexin is her closest challenger as she has 33,616 points, while Canadian Marianne St-Gelais is third.

Liu Shaoang of Hungary will aim to extend his lead in the men’s 1,000m classification as he has 23,549 points, closely followed by Kyoung Won-lim of South Korea, who has 22,619.

There is also a close battle in the men’s 1,500m as double Olympic champion Lee Jung-su of South Korea is the overall leader on 35,217 points.

Dutchman Sjinkie Knegt will hope to go one better than his second place finish in Gangneung and he is not far behind the South Korea on 34,400.

The event in Dresden begins with heats, before finals take place across the weekend.