Brendel, who won the C1 and C2 1,000m races at last year's Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, was unstoppable once again as he topped the podium in a time of 3min 50:503sec.

The 29-year-old crossed the line in front of the Czech Republic's Martin Fuksa to deny the host nation a shock win.

Fuksa was second in 3:51:303, while three-time Olympic medallist Isaquias Queiroz came through to take the bronze for Brazil.

"After the Olympic season it’s a very big year for me to win this race because I had a long break, so very good the season has ended for me with a world title,” Brendel said.

“After 250 metres I could see Martin had a very high pace, so I tried to stay in touch with him and then I threw everything at him in the finish and it worked very good."

There was further success for Germany in the K1 1,000m as Tom Liebscher claimed the title, beating Fernando Pimenta of Portugal and Olympic silver medallist Josef Dostál of the Czech Republic.

The German canoeist clocked 3:27:754 to finish ahead of Pimenta, who was second in 3:27:993.

Dostál was unable to deliver the victory the home crowd craved and he was forced to settle for bronze in 3:28:576.

Elsewhere on the penultimate day of competition in the Czech village, Belarus’ Volha Khudzenka upset New Zealand's Lisa Carrington to win a thrilling women's K1 500m race.

Khudzenka stole the show as she clinched an unlikely triumph in a time of 1:48:421, with two-time Olympic champion Carrington second in 1:48:710.

Bronze went the way of Emma Aastrand Jorgensen of Denmark, who completed the 500m distance in 1:50:465.

The 28-year-old New Zealander recovered, however, as she teamed up with Caitlin Ryan to win the K2 500m by clocking 1:38:687.

Franziska Weber and Tina Dietze of Germany did enough for silver as they finished in 1:40:582, beating bronze medallists Špela Ponomarenko Janić and Anja Osterman of Slovenia.

"A few months ago I didn’t really know I was going to do this event, so I've only been training with Caitlin for a few months," Carrington said.

"This is why we do all the training that we do and I've been preparing for this for a while, so I just had to trust the process really."

Canada’s Laurence Vincent-Lapointe and Katie Vincent surged to the title in the women's C2 500m - an event which was recently added to the Olympic programme for Tokyo 2020 - as they crossed the line in 1:56:752.

Irina Andreeva and Olesia Romasenko of Russia took silver in 1:57:264, with the Belarusian duo of Alena Nazdrova and Kamila Bobr claiming bronze in 1:57:858.

Perennial silver medallists Marko Tomicevic and Milenko Zoric of Serbia finally got their hands on gold with victory in the men's K2 1,000m in 3:08:647.

The Slovakian pair of Peter Gelle and Adam Botek of Slovakia were the recipients of the silver medal as they clocked 3:10:725.

They edged Czech duo Jakub Spicar and Daniel Havel after a photo finish.