David Florence has the perfect vantage point to survey what lies in front of him.

At the halfway point between London 2012 and Rio 2016, the 32-year-old Scot defends his world slalom titles - at both C1 and C2 - in the Appalachian Mountains of western Maryland this week.

It is only the second time America has hosted the World Championships and the stunning setting at Deep Creek is far from the madding crowds of an Olympic Games, yet 20,000 spectators are expected to make their way to the Adventure Sports Centre International in McHenry for the four days of competition which begin on Thursday.

Florence stands accused of being greedy. When he won his first world title in Prague last year, he followed it up with another - in the C2 with English partner Richard Hounslow - within 24 hours.

He has since confessed that he did not know where his career should go from there, but he has just enjoyed his most successful World Cup season, second in the overall rankings, and the lure of chasing an unprecedented "double double" was always going to be difficult to resist.

Achieving that would put the Aberdeen-born paddler amongst the all-time greats in the sport, if he is not already dining at the top table.

An Olympic silver in C1 in Beijing, he attempted to become the first to win a double gold, on his home course at Lee Valley at London 2012. It did not work out in the singles, but he roared back to take silver in the doubles with Hounslow (behind Scot Tim Baillie, now retired, and Englishman Etienne Stott).

Looking back, does he feel he was too ambitious taking on both events?

"No, it was never a concern at all," he says. "Going into the Games, things were going really well. I had no real reason to have concerns I had taken on too much. OK, the Olympics didn't go quite as well as I would have hoped. It was fantastic to get a medal; obviously I would have liked to have done better in my C1, but there were lots of guys competing there in one category who probably didn't perform to their potential and sometimes that's just the way of it.

"To go on to win the World Championships in both categories the next year for me is a clear indication that I didn't take on too much."

The two events are quite distinct, but Florence has confirmed he intends to go for both again in Rio in two years' time, aware of the demands it will place on him.

"There are difficulties with it," he admits. "It's really demanding both physically and on your time, and there's the mental strain of putting in so much training to try and train in two categories all the time, which are different skills.

"Racing is pretty intense and you have twice as many runs as most of the other guys just competing in one category. But it's very motivating to do more. There are times like the Olympics in London when on the day the C1 just didn't quite go right and I still had a chance in the C2 and was able to come away with the silver medal rather than just the 10th place in C1. I really enjoy both and I don't think it's detrimental. It has its challenges."

While most of his competitions are in Europe, Florence has been over to Deep Creek this year to try out the venue and it is to his liking.

"It's quite a picturesque setting, very natural looking for an artificial course. I'm looking forward to it," he says. "It's at the top of a small mountain, like the top of a small ski resort in the middle of the semi-wilderness. It's a real nice set-up.

"It's no better or worse a course than most others really. I often think of myself as suiting the bigger style artificial courses, but I've had a lot of my good results on the likes of Prague and Seu [Spain] which are at the opposite ends of the spectrum.

"I'm pretty happy racing most places and I think what's interesting is it's no strong nation's home course. The Americans aren't really based there. If you go to Augsburg [Germany] or Prague you have got locals who are so good on it. So it's quite interesting that for everyone it's a new experience, even for the Americans to some degree, although obviously they will have trained there a lot more than others."

For someone who once applied to the European Space Agency to train as an astronaut, there is no ceiling to his ambitions. Retaining his world titles in Deep Creek would surely go a long way to satisfying his sense of adventure.