Knowledge bank: In sanskrit the word 'maya' at one and the same time means 'play', 'magic' and 'to discover (or create) the world'.

Knowledge bank: In this article, Laura Robinson explains how and why she wrote the play FrontRunners about ten indigenous runners in Canada. These men had been good runners and students in 1967 when Winnipeg hosted the Pan-Am Games and had been selected to run 800 kilometres with the torch from St. Paul, Minnesota to Winnipeg. However, just before entering the stadium the torch was taken from them and given to a non-Aboriginal runner.

Tarahumaras in Mexico and Kalenjins in Kenya are superb runners. Thanks to British colonialisation, the Kenyans have become integrated in world sport which has resulted - amongst other things - in exploitation of young athletes. The Mexicans on the other hand have preserved their own running culture, and Dirk Christensen wonders which group is better off.

The coexistence of sport and politics dates from the 9th century BC, when the institution of the truce, or "Ekecheiria", was established in Ancient Greece by the signing of an "international" treaty by three kings: Iphitos of Elis, Cleosthenes of Pisa and Lycurgus of Sparta.