I don't think your second paragraph follows your first. Just because you're doing an activity like sprinting solo doesn't mean there aren't social elements. The Olympics this summer will prove that hundreds of million if not billions of people can come together around sprinting, and several dozen other extremely specific and narrow activities, if only for a brief time.

This doesn't reflect reality as far as I've ever seen

Hundreds of millions if not billions of people may watch sprinting, or diving or any number of niche solo sports, but do they really care further than "I hope our guy wins"?

Do they care about the technical aspects of running or discus or whatever else? Not a chance

It's not even remotely close to how passionate people get about team sports. Millions of people will celebrate in the streets if their soccer team wins a medal. People will argue endlessly about the technical little details of a soccer match, the calls refs make, etc

Solo sports aren't really comparable to team sports in the social aspect, either for society or for the players on the teams

Nobody who lived during the Cold War would say that solo Olympic sports weren't part of a team sport, the team being your nation. A solo gold medal in one of the premier events (100m dash, gymnastics all-around, figure skating) was just as intense as any professional league championship ever was. It's not an exaggeration to say it was proxy warfare and possibly prevented actual global war. It was a way for those nations to express dominance off the field of battle.

I agree with you. Of course it doesn't get remotely close to how passionate people get about team sports. The audience and money involved in these won't be beat anytime soon, simplify due to traditions. But your comment is short-sighted because you don't seem interested in sprinting or track and field sports and haven't been following recent events coming out of that space. Just as an example, have you seen what Marcell Jacobs did for his country, being the first Italian sprinter to ever win a world championship, not just once but a couple of times, defying the Jamaican and American hegemony against all odds? He became an overnight sensation, was on the cover of a bunch of magazines, and inspired millions in his country. Nowadays he's under a lot of criticism because he couldn't keep his position exactly because sprinting requires the utmost physical and mental toughness.

> At best, it's designed to test fitness, but it even fails at that really

> You don't socialize with sprinting, and most people wouldn't use 100m sprinting as an activity to improve their fitness

FAILS to test fitness? Really? Have you ever read anything about sports science and psychology? First, athlets don't compete singularly in the 100m sprinting event, a lot of them compete in different modalities, like the 100m, 200m, relays, etc. Sprinting 100m and specially the 400m are considered the hardest races for humans. It tests endurance, lactic acid build-up, pacing, mental toughness, strategy at the rawest level, and not to mention the mental preparation you have to have to deal with the pressure and criticism of the media, when you're on the track being viewed by millions and you have just a few seconds to prove yourself. How is that not testing someone's fitness well? You just can't isolate 100m sprinting especially as an activity. Sprinting up to your 100% max heart rate is excellent for fitness, muscle growth, and longevity. There's a lot of research on this coming out with concrete data about the benefits of sprinting vs other kinds of sports.

I’d wager that sprinting races, like most sport, have their origins in warfare. Being able to move from point of cover A to point B as quickly as possible is very useful in avoiding projectile weapons.

That seems too complicated. Racing from one point to the other it's really one of the simplest things two people can do and it's one of those purest expressions of athletic ability. Even animals do it.

Just because it is not a team sport does not make it not social?