Abstract
Two prevalent assumptions in the philosophy of sport literature are that all
sports are games and that all games are contests, meant to determine who is
the better at the skills definitive of the sport. If these are correct, it would
follow that all sports are contests and that a range of sporting activities,
including nature sports, are not in fact sports at all. This paper first confronts
the notion that sport and games must seek to resolve skill superiority through
consideration of sport activities that have no such aim. The reduction of sport
to game is also shown to be untenable and due to misunderstanding the
point of sport activities, specifically, why people engage in them. This leads to
reconsideration of the dominance of an instrumental conception of sport and
the pursuit of excellence as anthropomaximising efficiency. The Norwegian
tradition of frilutsliv is explored as a counterpoint to both conventional and
nature sport.