The event at the Mt. Van Hoevenberg Combination Bobsled, Skeleton and Luge Track will also see the majority of last season’s overall World Cup winners in action.

Germany’s Francesco Friedrich, world champion and overall World Cup winner in the two-man bobsleigh, is among the leading names due to be at this opener.

Team-mate Johannes Lochner, who shared first place with Friedrich in the four-man bobsleigh at the 2017 IBSF World Championships in Königssee, will be present as well.

The respective men's and women's world champions and defending World Cup winners in skeleton, Jacqueline Lölling of Germany and Martins Dukurs of Latvia, will also be in Lake Placid. 

At their home event, the United States’ team will be led by two bobsleigh pilots; world champion Elana Meyers Taylor and overall World Cup winner Jamie Greubel Poser.

Also on the team will be bobsleigh brakeman Steven Langton, who has made it onto his country's side for the first time since the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, and pilot Justin Olsen.

Langton won World Championship gold in the two-man and four-man bobsleigh in 2012 and Olympic bronze in 2014 - both times with pilot Steven Holcomb, who passed away unexpectedly in May.

Together, the two athletes finished on the podium at countless World Cup races in both the two-man and four-man bobsleigh.

The US team’s racing suits for this season will bear the initials of Holcomb, the Vancouver 2010 Olympic gold medallist in the four-man bobsleigh.

"It's been a challenge for the team to move forward without the security of knowing we could count on Steven Holcomb to pull us through," Darrin Steele, chief executive of the United States Bobsled and Skeleton Federation, said.

"I’m proud of the character they’ve shown and I look forward to seeing what they can do on the world stage."

Athletes from a total of 22 countries will be battling it out for success in Lake Placid.

China will be taking part in an IBSF World Cup for the first time in history.

Skeleton athlete Wenqiang Geng, who finished fourth overall in last year’s IBSF Intercontinental Cup, has been nominated for his first World Cup race of the Pyeongchang 2018 season by head coach Jeff Pain.

To be eligible to start, the 22-year-old - like all other athletes - must first complete at least two crash-free runs during the official World Cup training session.

Lake Placid is the course where Wenqiang Geng achieved his best results to date.

In March 2016, he finished sixth at the IBSF North American Cup and in January 2017 he took fifth place in the Intercontinental Cup.

Tomorrow’s action is due to begin with the women’s skeleton event with Britain's reigning Olympic champion Lizzy Yarnold among those set to compete.

Yarnold will be looking to build on the bronze medal she won at last season’s World Championships in Königssee as she continues her quest to become the first Briton to retain a Winter Olympic title.

She will be competing in Lake Placid alongside fellow Briton Laura Deas, who ended the 2016-2017 season sixth in the World Cup standings.

"While Olympic medals won’t be won in week one, it is important that we get off to a good start," Andi Schmid, GB Skeleton's performance advisor, said.

"We want to build momentum and confidence and it would be great to be able to do that right from the off.

"Both Lizzy and Laura have shown that they know how to win at this level and we want them to be challenging for medals on a regular basis in the lead up to the Games."

The women’s bobsleigh and two-man bobsleigh events complete tomorrow’s programme before the men’s skeleton takes centre stage on Friday (November 10).

A four-man bobsleigh event was also scheduled for Friday, but has been cancelled after the Organising Committee determined that the consistency of ice conditions for racing in that discipline could not be secured due to the warm weather conditions in recent days. 

As the races are part of the Olympic qualification process for Pyeongchang 2018, the IBSF has made the decision to hold two two-man races in Lake Placid and two four-man races at the second leg of the World Cup scheduled to take in Park City on November 17 and 18.