Woah woah woah, why shouldn't we consider golfers and in particular drivers to be atheletes? Have you seen how fit you need to be to drive an F1 car? It's really quite something!

On topic, it's pretty much been said but no, pro gamers aren't atheletes in my eyes. You don't need to be physically fit to do it, nor is there any real "training" involved in my eyes. Yeah, you may be skilled to do it, but it's different from being athletic.

If chess is considered a sport, I don't why e-sports can't.

How does one "push the limits of your body" playing golf, swinging the club every once in a while and riding a golf cart between each course? Or the one releasing the curling ball?
The notion that you have to sweat excessively to be an athlete doesn't quite seem to be the case.
As for how challenging or how much practice you need can be applied to any sport. But that doesn't mean that anyone who practices a fighting game turns out to be as good as the pros. There's a distinct difference in talent and aptitude between fighting game players when it comes to excecution (the ability to input commands accurately). Some times it requires strict 1-frame input windows. That is 1/60th of a second. If you press the button 1 frame before or after, it won't succeed. And there are players who are a lot better at doing this consistently than others, in spite of years and years of training. Some are almost inhumanly good at doing this consistently, and in high pressure situations like big tournaments, such as Sakonoko. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4otVkoVxyig

Although excecution is only one aspect that sets people appart from one another. There are a lot of other aspects when it comes to reading the game that makes many players level unreachable to others, even though they practice for years. Daigo Umeharea is a good example of a legendary fighting game player who gives people jaw dropping performances still today. And he lives his life playing fighting games competetively each day. Though now he has also published two books and a manga. For those who haven't seen the famous parry video, it's a piece of video gaming history worth watching even if you're not a fighting game fan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS7hkwbKmBM
And for those who don't know, parrying requires you to press Forward on the stick (opposite of block, which is Back) with accurate frame timing, and you'll nullify the attack and take no chip damage by blocking. He was down to no health left so that Chun Li super would have killed him if he blocked it. But for him to parry every single hit, even the one in the air, and at the same time build enough meter to perform his own super to kill his opponent while doing so was just something no one had ever seen at this point. Let alone in an actual match in the world championship.

Anyway, sidetracking a bit but I'm not sure what the definiton of athletes is supposed to be, considering Golf and Curling and such. Doesn't really matter what you call people, as long as you recognise what they're doing.

you can say that again!