Sportmanship

From an interview with George Sotomanikos(*), 

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See if you will the simple mechanic of the aero-static harness.

As long as the runner is hanging, the burners are kept in idle.

Once she touches ground, and lightens the weight on the sliding support, burners go to full power.

So, on touching ground, a runner must try to walk as hard as she can, to keep traction on the harness, so that the burners stays in idle and she avoids wasting gas, and avoids being lifted up again as a result of the air in the balloon being heated.

Once every year, the girls in our stable that wants to try and shorten their contract are, all, so harnessed and left free to spread.

The one that manages to reach the farthest distance, before the gas canisters run dry, is freed and receive a very substantial amount of money.

The others have to renew their pledges of absolute enslavement for a year, lengthening their stay.

- The locals? No, none of them has ever freed a runner.

We explained the rules to their elders, who concluded that we are - indeed - crazy, but found the whole thing otherwise appropriate.

They like proper sportsmanship, to say the least.

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(*) Of course, the name is invented and no such person exists or, if you prefer, any similarity between elements of this tale an persons, places and objects real, existing or existed is purely coincidental.