The 28-year-old has won the last three individual sprint World Cup events she has participated in, as well as the world title in the sprint in Austrian village of Seefeld last month.

She can now claim four straight victories for the first time since March 2016.

Among Falla's likely challengers is Sweden's Stina Nilsson, who has won four individual sprint events this season and will be hopeful of success in front of a home crowd.

Olympic champion Nilsson also leads the overall sprint World Cup standings from Falla by just 13 points. 

Other contenders include Russia's Yulia Belorukova and the United States' Jessica Diggins, the only female athletes not hailing from Scandinavia to have won an individual sprint event this World Cup season.

In the men's sprint event, also scheduled for tomorrow, Norway's Johannes Høsflot Klaebo and Italy's Federico Pellegrino are both expected to be in the medal mix.

Klaebo is on six individual sprint victories this World Cup season.

He could equal his own record for most sprint victories in a single campaign, which currently stands at seven in 2017-2018.

Pellegrino finished on the podium at the last two individual sprint events in Falun.

He won the World Cup race in 2017 and finished second behind triple Olympic champion Klaebo in the World Cup Final in 2018.

Other than Klaebo and Pellegrino, Russia's Alexander Bolshunov and Norway's Sindre Bjørnestad Skar are the only winners of an individual sprint World Cup this season.

Klaebo leads the men's sprint standings with 604 points, with Pellegrino second on 459.

He is also at the top of the overall rankings with 1,281 points compared to Russian Alexander Bolshunov's 1,250.

On Sunday (March 17), the women's 10 kilometres and men's 15km events will be held.

Norway's Therese Johaug has won all 11 women's individual distance World Cup and World Championship races in which she has participated this season.

The last time she did not win an individual distance race was the 10km pursuit classic style in the Ski Tour Canada in March 2016 and she will be looking to continue her dominance in Falun. 

Klaebo, meanwhile, has two distance event wins to his name this season - the 15km pursuit freestyle and the 15km classic in the Tour de Ski in January - and will be vying for a third this weekend.

The event in Falun is the penultimate leg of the FIS Cross-Country World Cup with the Finals scheduled to take place in Québec in Canada from March 22 to 24.

Ingvild Flugstad Østberg of Norway is at the top of the women's overall rankings on 1,329, a lead of just two points on Russia's Natalya Nepryayeva.