British canoe slalom head coach Paul Ratcliffe is hoping the fans attending this week’s World Championships at Lee Valley can help recreate some of the magic from London 2012.

Ratcliffe, who has held the position since 2013, will lead a squad of 14 into the first World Championships to be held in the UK in 20 years.

Lee Valley White Water Centre was the venue for the London 2012 canoe slalom event and has been the base for British Canoeing since the previous year. While some London 2012 venues have downscaled since ‘the greatest show on earth’ three years ago, Lee Valley has grown as a venue and continues to develop the sport.

Ratcliffe said: “It is a privilege to come to work every day at Lee Valley. It is probably the best venue in the world so to have the World Championships at one of the toughest white water courses in the world, right on the doorstep of London, we are hopeful of attracting the crowds.

“The look and feel of London 2012 and the crowds we had then, if we can recreate a bit of that for our World Championships then it will probably be one of the most significant championships of this Olympic cycle.

“Everyone is really looking forward to the opportunity of competing in front of the home crowd.

“It is 20 years since the last World Championships here and this is the first World Championships in terms of the legacy from London 2012 so it is a really good opportunity for us in the build-up to Rio.

“This event is crucial with Rio in mind. Obviously it is the World Championships and the most important race of the year but secondly it is the races where we qualify our places for Rio and there is only one place per nation in each category so it is going to be hard.

“It is also part of our selection series that then goes into October and then we take the team towards Rio.”

Almost all of the squad for the competition, which takes place between today and September 20, have won Olympic, World Championships or European titles in the past and with unrivalled knowledge of the Lee Valley course, the majority will go in hopeful of at least making the final. And in canoe slalom, where titles are decided by the very smallest of margins, anything can happen from there.

But Ratcliffe, who won K1 silver at the 2000 Olympics, said: “Every athlete dreams of standing on the podium so that is what they would love to do. We know how difficult that is in this sport and we are really good at not getting ahead of the game.

“This sport is about formulating good plans and then the athletes going out and delivering their absolute best performances on the day.”