VANCOUVER (AFP) - The 2010 Vancouver Olympics torch relay, already the longest in Games history, will break another record on Sunday when it visits the North Pole.

The torch will be carried across Inuit territory by 22 runners to Alert, the Canadian army and weather station which is also the world's northernmost, permanently-inhabited site.

The torch, specially-built to resist temparatures of minus-50 degrees Celsius, will become the first Olympic torch to be carried the 900km to the North Pole.