Many people have argued this matter over the years and have come to different conclusions. In this article I will go over some of the criteria that need to be met for something to be a sport and I will also shed my view on what's at hand. Being a chess player myself for years I have often found myself questioning this and I have agreed with both sides of this argument at different times in my life.
Firstly, I looked up 'What constitutes a sport?' Then I found the definition that the Council of Europe uses "Sport means all forms of physical activity, which through casual or organized participation, aim at expressing or improving physical fitness and mental well-being, forming social relationships or obtaining results in competition at all levels." The only physical activity in chess involves pressing the clock - which can sometime be rather tiring in speed chess - and sometimes players like to stand up and wonder around to look at other players boards, people sometimes do this as a form of mind games with their opponent.
Despite the fact chess didn’t use much physical activity I looked at the sports chosen in the Olympics and why they were chosen. After only a few minutes I found out the IOC (International Olympic Commitee), who recognize sports for the Olympics, had recognized chess as a sport, however chess is not part of the Olympic Games. However chess was considered for what would have been the 2020 Olympics only to be rejected, some believe it is due to the costs, however another issue may be what time limit to use, do they do multiple chess competitions for, bullet, blitz, rapid and classical (these are different time limits of chess). Although for a sport to become part of the Olympics enough people must play it from all 75 countries and while chess is a worldwide sport, many countries do not have any players at Grandmaster level.
All in all, I agree with the IOC that chess is a sport, however I do not think it really needs to be part of the Olympics due to its extremely large fanbase and the prize money is already very high in lots of high level tournaments. If chess were to become part of the Olympics it would be a big step forward and could attract lots more players, especially younger players.
