What is sports!!!!

A fresh controversy has just started over F1 future of India. Our honourable Sports minister Mr. Gill has said that Indian Government is not going to spend anything on Formula1 racing from its sports quota because it’s not a sport. It’s just an expensive entertainment of rich people. The agenda has come in front when Indian Govt was asked to pay the registration fee to host 2011 Grand Prix in Noida. After Force India’s Podium finish in Belgium grand prix people of India has started showing interest in F1 racing. And offcourse Vijay Mallya is there, so for media enough resources are present in this topic. Now the question is not about F1 or sports quota or any thing else. Question is what is the definition of sports? Who is going to decide this?
As per Oxford Dictionary the meaning of sport is “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others”. In this entire sentence I feel the most important word is “competes”, because physical exertion or skill may lead to a different meaning. Think of a bloody street fight or gang war; skills are there, physical exertion is also there but can it be called a sport? No because it is not a competition from any angle (I guess!!). Let’s take one more example. In my childhood I was fan of WWF (World Wrestling Federation). I had a feeling that those guys were fighting in real. It never appeared to be well executed pre planned stunts to me. In the year 2002 WWF becomes WWE as wrestlers admit defeat so it cannot be a sport resulting the replacement of Federation word with Entertainment.
Now let’s talk about the greatest sports event of the Earth, the Olympic. First Olympic game was recorded in 776 BC; that was about 3,000 years ago. At that time this great festival took place to honour the Greek gods. Olympics were held during the great festival. Olympics were held to please one god, in particular, Zeus. That means Entertainment is also a term associated with sports. In the first 13 Olympics there was only one event, Sprint. After that they added Pentathlon, Discus, Javelin, Jumping, Wrestling, Equestrian, Chariot racing. And now there are lot more events. All of these events satisfy the formal definition of sport, though I don’t consider some of them as sport. For me sports are those events in what we love to take part (playing or watching) and that too not being a professional sports person. I don’t think anyone would ever go to his/her backyard and start throwing Javelin to neighbour’s house or stealing dinner plates to practice discuss throwing. Did ever anyone ask you “Hey lets go to the park and play (?) Weight lifting”.
Play, this is the term closely associated with sports and I think the best to describe sports. Cricket, Football, Hockey, Tennis, Badminton, Tables Tennis and a lot more, all of these can be played. However Boxing, Wrestling or Equestrian, they are only some events which can be performed but cannot be played. I am not saying all of them are sports which can be played. In that case playing Cards can also be termed as Sport. No that is not the case; this concept of playing an event should also be considered along with all the other constraints in the definition. Otherwise, by definition by logic if you consider sailing/cycling as sports then F1 racing should also be considered as sports, though it is a combination of high technology, machinery and huge money.