The opening day of the competition saw many participants return to Deodoro, the venue used for the 2016 Olympics and now the World Championships in the Brazilian city.

Alexander Slafkovsky, Michal Martikan and Matej Benus of Slovakia have won every men's C1 World Championship team title since the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

They beat Slovenia by just 0.28 secs, with Great Britain coming third.

"We are changing the history, it's amazing," Slafkovsky said.

"It was a very tough race today, the other teams had very strong, very good runs.

"And I touched the last upstream gate, so I thought it would not be enough.

"We really are a compact team, everybody knows what to do, and even if something goes wrong we are very fast at creating and we think well."

The first gold medal of the event went to the French women's K1 team.

Great Britain were also winners, with gold in the men's K1 and the women's C1.

The competition continues tomorrow, with the women's K1 and men's C1 individual heats.