Schurter, who has 12 World Championship titles, needs one further race win to eclipse Frenchman Julien Absalon with 33 as the most successful rider in the history of the World Cup.

Both men are currently tied on 33 races.

"It would be a dream to realise the record in Lenzerheide, but a lot of things have to come together and luck has to be on my side," Schurter admitted.

"When racing in front of a home crowd, with friends and family, motivation is always higher."

Schurter leads the World Cup standings from Romania’s Vlad Dascălu, but could face his strongest challenge at home from his Swiss compatriot Mathias Fluckiger who won the last World Cup race in Leogang, Austria a month ago to move up to third in the overall standings.

In the sprint standings, Fluckiger is only three points adrift of German rider Luca Schwarzbauer.

In the women’s competition Leona Lecomte of France also won in Leogang for the second successive year to move up to second overall behind Australia’s Rebecca McConnell who heads both the cross country Olympic and sprint World Cup standings after a superb start to the season.

Lenzerheide has been part of the World Cup circuit since 2015 but the upper portion of the 2.2 kilometre course has been modified for 2022.

It features a drop of 413 metres and an 18 per cent average gradient.

Racers start in the Alpine Parpaner Rothorn mountains. at an altitude of 1700 metres, the highest in the series.

Riders can reach speeds of 65 kilometres an hour on some parts of the course.

Competition begins with the downhill seeding runs tomorrow, with the first day also due to include short track cross country elite races for both men and women.

Racing is scheduled to conclude on Sunday (July 10).