Is paintball a sport?

Five years ago I went paintballing for the first time with a group of friends. We went there thinking we would shoot everyone, how hard could it be? After a couple of games, we were covered in paint and hadn't shot anybody and couldn't understand why. We asked one of the guys on the opposing team how he became so good and his response caught me quite off guard. He told us that he practiced weekly, and even worked out on a regular basis to be as good as he could be because he competed in a paintball league. This opened my eyes to a whole new world, one in which I would emerse myself in to this very day. Just like in any other sport, in paintball physical attributes are a plus, commitment, skill and physical activities are a must to be competitive and relevant in the sport.

Competitiveness is the key to any sport. Without it, there would be no intensity or drive to get better. Many, if not all players have shed blood, sweat, and tears on game day and in practice. Practicing once a week for four straight hours and working out throughout the week is normal for a paintball player. But if you want to compete at the highest level, you need a more rigourous training schedule. The Russians, more commonly reffered to as the Boston Red Legion, have their very own training facility in Russia and practice every day. Due to their intense training regiment, they're always one of the top teams, if not the top team in various pro leagues. Naysayers of paintball being a sport tend to bring up the argument " if paintball was a sport, why don't we have school teams?". What they don't realise is that more and more high schools in the United States have added paintball to their gym curriculum. Some colleges have even started a paintball league, the NCPA, the National College Paintball Association.

A sport is defined as being an organized, competitive, and skillful physical activity requiring commitment and fair play. Governed by a set of rules or customs. Physical capabilities and skills of the competitors are leading factors when determining the outcome( taken from wikipedia). Paintball meets all of these requirements, unlike poker, which some people would like to see in the olympics. Paintball can be considered as being a combination of skeet shooting and running, and if those can be considered sports, why can't paintball?