Sydney - An Australian circus performer will climb aboard 17-metre poles in an attempt to break the world record for stilt walking, news reports said Saturday.

National record-holder Roy Maloy will take off on stilts the height of a four-storey building.

"To build the tallest stilts ever, it's not just one piece of wood, which I made the Australian record stilts out of, you need to make them out of three pieces of very lightweight aluminium that are all welded together like a scaffold," Maloy told national broadcaster ABC in Adelaide.

"It's got to be extremely strong and extremely light because we're talking about, in that length, nearly 30 kilos per leg." (dpa)