The event, held at the German city’s Dm-Arena, has become a regular fixture from the inception of the World Athletics Indoor Tour in 2016.

In the women's high jump, the focus will fall on Ukrainian duo Yuliya Levchenko and Yaroslava Mahuchikh, who sailed to silver-medal finishes at the London 2017 and Doha 2019 World Athletics Championships respectively.

Mahuchikh, 18, raised the world under-20 record to 2.04 metres in Qatar’s capital, a performance which landed her the World Athletics Rising Star award for 2019.

She began her season in style earlier this month by breaking the world under-20 indoor record with a 2.01m leap at the Oleksiy Demyanyuk Memorial in Lviv.

Levchenko, 22, has also started well, topping 2.00m at the Christmas Starts meet in Kyiv.

That was also her best-ever start to a season.

The pair squared off for the first time this campaign last night in another German city Cottbus, where Mahuchikh beat Levchenko to victory by 0.02m with a leap of 1.98m.

The field also includes Iryna Gerashchenko, a third Ukrainian who improved to 1.99m outdoors last year and 1.97m indoors, and Germany's Imke Onnen, a 1.96m jumper indoors last year.

The highlight on the men's programme is the pole vault, in which the United States' Sam Kendricks and France's Renaud Lavillenie, the reigning world champions outdoors and indoors respectively, will again do battle.

Kendricks will be making his 2020 World Athletics Indoor Tour debut after a sensational 2019 campaign saw the 27-year-old successfully defend his world title and register two more six-metre clearances.

His best, a 6.06m effort at the US Championships in Des Moines in July, elevated him to the number two position outdoors on the all-time list.

World record holder Lavillenie, who opened his campaign with a 5.80m clearance in Bordeaux earlier this month, is a three-time winner in Karlsruhe.

His most recent victory came in 2016, when he set the 5.91m meeting record. 

Kendricks and Lavillenie have met 40 times in competition since April 2013, with the former carrying a 23-17 advantage.

Home fans' focus will fall on rising German star Bo Kanda Lita Baehre, who finished fourth at the 2019 World Championships and earlier in the season triumphed at the European Under-23 Championships in Swedish city Gävle.

Both of the 20-year-old's career bests - 5.72m outdoors and 5.70m indoors - came last year.

Now in its fifth season, this year’s World Athletics Indoor Tour began in Boston last Saturday (January 25) with the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix.

It marked the start of an action-packed 27-day stretch that includes further stops in German city Düsseldorf on February 4, Toruń in Poland on February 8, Scottish city Glasgow on February 15 and Liévin in France on February 19 before the finale in Madrid on February 21, when the series winners in 11 point-scoring disciplines will be crowned and awarded their $20,000 (£15,000/€18,000) prize bonuses.

In addition to the women’s high jump and men’s pole vault, six other scoring disciplines are on the programme in Karlsruhe.