This list rounds up 26 sports that start with the letter A, running from “Archery” to “Arnis.” They range from Olympic mainstays like Athletics and Artistic Gymnastics to niche pursuits like Axe Throwing and Auto Polo, covering everything from combat and precision sports to team games and motorsports. Whether you’re researching a school project, exploring a new hobby, or just curious about how many “A” sports exist, this list gives you a quick, organized reference.
Sports are structured physical activities with rules, goals, and often a competitive element, played individually or in teams. Many trace back centuries, like Archery, which started as a hunting and combat skill before becoming an Olympic event. Others, like Artistic Swimming, evolved from simpler practices into highly choreographed, judged performances.
Below you’ll find the table with each sport and its description.
Sport: the name of the sport, so you can quickly find the one you’re looking for or scan the full list at a glance.
Description: a short explanation of how the sport works, its origins, and what makes it distinct, so you understand it without extra research.
Sports
| Sport |
|---|
| Archery |
| Athletics |
| American Football |
| Aikido |
| Alpine Skiing |
| Angling |
| Arm Wrestling |
| Artistic Gymnastics |
| Artistic Swimming |
| Australian Rules Football |
| Auto Racing |
| Autocross |
| Adventure Racing |
| Airsoft |
| Axe Throwing |
| Sport Aerobics |
| Aggressive Inline Skating |
| Air Racing |
| Amateur Wrestling |
| Aquathlon |
| Arena Football |
| Artistic Roller Skating |
| Auto Polo |
| Acrobatic Gymnastics |
| Amputee Football |
| Arnis |
Descriptions
Archery
A precision sport where competitors shoot arrows at a target from a set distance, testing accuracy, focus, and steady technique. It has ancient roots as a hunting and combat skill and is now a mainstay of the Olympics.
Athletics
An umbrella sport covering track and field events like sprinting, distance running, jumping, and throwing. It’s one of the oldest organized sports and forms the backbone of the Summer Olympics.
American Football
A team sport played on a gridiron where two sides advance an oval ball through tackling, passing, and running plays to score touchdowns. It’s the most popular spectator sport in the United States.
Aikido
A Japanese martial art focused on blending with an opponent’s movement and redirecting their force rather than meeting it head-on. It emphasizes throws, joint locks, and self-defense over striking.
Alpine Skiing
A winter sport where competitors race down snow-covered slopes on skis, navigating gates at high speed. Disciplines include downhill, slalom, and giant slalom, all staples of the Winter Olympics.
Angling
The sport of fishing with a hook, line, and rod, practiced recreationally and competitively from shorelines, boats, or riverbanks. Anglers test patience and skill trying to land the biggest or rarest catch.
Arm Wrestling
A strength sport in which two competitors lock hands and try to force each other’s arm down onto a table. It rewards raw power, grip strength, and quick technique.
Artistic Gymnastics
A gymnastics discipline where athletes perform choreographed routines on apparatus like the vault, bars, beam, and floor. Judges score for difficulty, execution, and artistry.
Artistic Swimming
Formerly known as synchronized swimming, this sport blends swimming, dance, and gymnastics as teams perform choreographed routines in the water in time with music.
Australian Rules Football
A fast-paced team sport played on a large oval field where players kick and handball an oval ball to score goals. It’s Australia’s most watched domestic sport.
Auto Racing
A broad motorsport category where drivers compete in specially built or modified cars on circuits, ovals, or street courses to finish first. Formula 1 and NASCAR are its most famous forms.
Autocross
A timed motorsport event where drivers race one at a time through a cone-marked course, aiming for the fastest single lap rather than direct wheel-to-wheel competition.
Adventure Racing
A multi-discipline endurance sport combining trekking, mountain biking, paddling, and navigation over long distances, often lasting days and requiring teamwork and wilderness skills.
Airsoft
A recreational combat sport where players use replica guns firing small plastic pellets to simulate military-style tactical engagements, often played on themed outdoor or indoor fields.
Axe Throwing
A target sport where competitors throw hatchets at a wooden board to score points, similar in spirit to darts. It has grown quickly as a competitive and social pastime.
Sport Aerobics
A competitive form of aerobics where athletes perform high-intensity, gymnastics-influenced routines set to music, judged on strength, flexibility, and synchronization.
Aggressive Inline Skating
An extreme sport where skaters perform tricks, grinds, and jumps on ramps, rails, and street obstacles using specially reinforced inline skates.
Air Racing
A motorsport where pilots fly small, high-speed aircraft through a low-altitude obstacle course marked by air pylons, competing for the fastest time.
Amateur Wrestling
A grappling sport where two competitors try to pin or gain control over each other using holds, throws, and takedowns, contested in freestyle and Greco-Roman styles at the Olympics.
Aquathlon
A multisport race combining running and swimming without a break in between, testing all-around endurance across two very different disciplines.
Arena Football
A fast, high-scoring indoor variant of American football played on a smaller field with modified rules that favor passing and quick scoring.
Artistic Roller Skating
A sport where skaters perform jumps, spins, and choreographed routines on roller skates, closely paralleling figure skating but performed on wheels instead of ice.
Auto Polo
An early motorsport in which drivers and mallet-wielding players in cars tried to hit a ball into a goal. Popular in the early 1900s, it has since become largely historical.
Acrobatic Gymnastics
A gymnastics discipline where partners or small teams perform balances, lifts, and throws together without apparatus, blending strength, flexibility, and trust between partners.
Amputee Football
A version of football adapted for players with limb differences, played with crutches by field players and without a lower limb by goalkeepers, following modified FIFA-style rules.
Arnis
A Filipino martial art and combat sport centered on stick fighting, along with blade and open-hand techniques, emphasizing speed and precise weapon handling.