The Sochi Olympic torch relay will be the longest in Winter Olympic history, traveling 40,000 miles on land and by sea, including into space and even to the North Pole.
Just how will the flame reach the northernmost point on Earth?
Sochi 2014 tweeted out a photo of the means of transportation -- an icebreaker ship named “50 Let Pobedy” -- on Thursday.
The ship, translated to “50 Years of Victory,” will take the torch from Murmansk, Russia, to the North Pole and back in October. That’s more than 3,000 miles.
Murmansk news outlet Barentsnova has more details:
The fire will be kept in a special lamp during its 5.000 km long transportation onboard the icebreaker and across a block of drifting ice. On the North Pole, representatives of Arctic Council member countries will continue the relay to fire up an Olympic cauldron of Sochi 2014. The North Pole journey will be facilitated by Rosatom.
https://twitter.com/Sochi2014/statuses/380736989701496833