After all, just about every sport started as training for war; track and field events were about personal fitness and skills used in battle, and team sports started as a way to train teams to be tactically co-ordinated for war.
This is news to me. I didn't know that it was a training for war. Just wooow.
It's true ! Running and jumping events build speed and stamina and general fitness. The marathon got it's name from the Battle of Marathon in the first Greek-Persian War; it's the exact distance Pheidippides ran from the battlefield to the Agora in Central Athens to bring news of the victory. Wrestling was another sport the Greeks loved (although the Spartans were banned from the Olympic Pankration, the all-in version, for being just too dangerous), but most cultures have used wrestling in one form or another as a way to practice unarmed combat.
Archery, javelin and discus throwing was training to use weapons of war. Polo started off using severed heads instead of a ball, and was practice for the cavalry. Fox hunting and similar sports taught cavalry how to operate in units, as well as cavalry-infantry co-operation.
Rugby taught physical resilience, tactics and co-operation, and the Duke of Wellington was heard to say that Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.
I think the only sports I can think of off the top of my head that don't have a martial use are ping-pong and cricket 😆