I’m not an advocate of that solution but I can nevertheless propose an argument in favor: this is an application of a time-honored pattern, see the use of footway and cycleway vs path.
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So far folks have mostly responded to my question (how is this one thing the same as this other thing?) with an explanation of how attribute tags can be used to differentiate them. That’s well understood, but it wasn’t the question. Attribute tags can also be used to differentiate two dissimilar things tagged highway=cycleway so this is not an argument for why leisure=track would be a more suitable top level tag (aka primary or feature tag).
There was one response stating a reason why the two things could be considered to belong under the the same top level tag:
Does anyone else have others?
Most of the sport=* values documented on the wiki are consistent with my understanding of what leisure=track represents. toboggan seems out of place to me though. Would it include Summer toboggan - Wikipedia?
Sure. We could even do away with the concept of top level tags entirely! Data consumers can figure everything out from attributes, right? Just tag everything with width, height, access, surface, smoothness, maxspeed, sport, etc. /sarcasm 
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(cough) highway=path (/cough) 
The case I’d make here is that functionally the running track, the downhill cycle track and my “horse gallops” example do have things in common:
- They’re for people taking part in (or preparing for) something considered a sport
- That sport is non-motorised
- The “way from A to B” isn’t shared with a bunch of people who are just trying to get from A to B; it;s specifically for the sport/leisure activity.
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Indeed. A cautionary tale we can hopefully avoid repeating 
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I recently used leisure as a top level around here, Node: Bettelwurf Bike Park (12903228341) | OpenStreetMap Photos here https://www.bettelwurfbikepark.at/
I once tagged a pump track as a cycleway. It felt wrong from the beginning, until I learned of the sports tagging that I immediately embraced and extended It is just so much more organic. A fellow local mapper even got the same idea ahead of me, Way History: Downhill Trail (1172779764) | OpenStreetMap - I recently separated the downhill/uphill/pump-tracks there into single entities.
Some of my mappings were contested, reasons given:
- The tracks show faint in the standard map view
- The mtb-scale difficulty is not rendered in mobile apps
- They do not look like the tartan 400m round pictured in the wiki
From these reasons pump-tracks and the skill-area (yet to be mapped) all have to become cycleways too.
From my point of view, the only thing that can be said against using leisure=track would be, that the usage would dilute the meaning. As been told, the meaning is broad already, I don’t think anybody contests the use on the pump-tracks, and physically, they are much the same as the downhill ones. Let the fun to be had guide the mapping!
Some earlier discussion here How do I tag a bike park?
Now, as the wiki shows images of facilities for the sport of track running, I would expect leisure=track to refer to the sport of track cycling (i.e. a velodrome), when used in cycling context.
I’ll agree that pump tracks, bmx courses, cyclocross courses etc. are very analogous and could perhaps be grouped under the same leisure tag, if the specific cycling sport is then handled by some other tag. The name is just going to be potentially misleading, and the usage should be clarified in the wiki.
But in any case I’d suggest that dedicated gravity riding routes are more similar to downhill skiing than anything else. Locally these are pretty much always going to be the same hill, just different sports in winter and summer.
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For every thumbs-down a post of mine gets I happily spend a thumbs up here in the forum, and if no explanation for the thumbs down given, I spend another one or two
I put the downhill photo here File:MTB-Downhill-Piste.jpg - Wikimedia Commons There certainly are better photos out there. I think though, it clearly represents, that e.g. the person there is dressed not for mere cycling but instead for adventure playground, it shows the elevated curves that make it clear that this is a raceway. The photo shows the same person that called the track a Piste, BTW. Obvious naming, if you look at the yellow cushions at the trees, the operator knows, they do downhill skiing for ages.
I wish there were more of you. I am not into horses, but I gather the highway key there also spent for something that does not belong there?
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No it does not. That is how people dress for mountain biking generally.
No it does not. These are featured on many trails where mountain bikes are allowed (even if other types of transport are also allowed), most of which have never seen a race.
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Other modes than downhill biking not allowed there. This topic strictly not about multipurpose-anything.
Not always - for example here is something that (from the current changeset description) is currently a horse gallop, and access track for stable vehicles and a bridleway open to public north-south horse traffic. If you look here you can see the piece to the southwest that is just a horse gallop, and the piece to the northeast that is a bit of both. So something might be legitimately functionally both a highway of some sort and a leisure=track, or just one of them.
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I am assuming you are replying to my post.
Your premise: Banked curves (you called them elevated curves) only appear on racing track.
Your conclusion: The cycleway/path/track/whatever in the picture must therefore be a racing track because there is a banked curve.
I have shown your premise to be false. As a mountain biker I have seen a lot of these banked curves on many trails that are not for racing, have never seen a race, will probably never see a race, and may even allow for other modes of travel other than bicycles (making them particularly unsuitable for mountain bike racing).
If your premise is false, you cannot use it to support your conclusion. Whether this is a racing track or not, you cannot use the presence of banked turns as evidence that it is.
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I would like to point out that some single features are not to be singled out and the word “race” is rather misleading in this discussion.
I do believe that it is intended to be about all tracks/trails/pistes that are for MTB (and BMX) bikes only
These can be downhill or go uphill.
Yet they are single purpose: Riding with two wheels without intertuption by those pesky hikers or slow moving travelers of all sorts (wildlife possibly keeps away from busy trails).
These trails belong in the sports tagging in my opinion. If there are professional “races” there doesn’t matter.
So, can we please leave the nitty gritty for a possible proposal and keep this discussion on the general topic of moving bike-only trails (that are different from cycleways) to the sports domain?
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Not much of an idea how much scientific rigour is lacking in my posts. I am very certain though, that I never talked about competitions, especially not national or international ones. If the term race in English is only used to refer to such, certainly, I used the wrong term. Although I would not rule out informal competitions held on the track pictured in top post. I know for a certain that people do such informal competitions erm races. I stand by, the picture shows a track aimed at sporting. I could draw a polygon around the whole area, call it a pitch, sport is cycling and get away unmolested.
I had a hard time getting the web to translate “horse gallop” in a way that makes sense in that sentence. But I could translate it easily to cycling, the downhill is the gallop, one of the three modes a horse can move. That resonates well with how the UCI differentiates between the different MTB competitions.
PS: No lack of thumbs up emoticons to spend here
Understandable, because “gallop” there is a noun, not a verb
Have a look at these pictures. The first of those is one of the gallops here. When I was there a few weeks ago the ground was dry (because it hasn’t rained for ages) but the surface was covered in shoddy to soften it. Some gallops just use grass, some use sand or similar.
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That reminds me of something: “Galopp” as a noun in my language is one of three gaits of a horse. There are also several gaits of a human being: Walking, running, scrambling, crouching etc. Some are considered a sport. But some of them deliberately prefer to not use any man made infrastructure, e.g. tracks or gallops 
BTW: Lots of people here have a bike for transport and a bike for fun, especially those practising downhill biking.
UPDATE: Spinning the idea further, a new tag leisure=route might make sense to mark up e.g. sac_scale=demanding|difficult_alpine_hiking or trail_visibility=no|horrible ways. In the local community this year such was discussed twice because people wanted them paths deleted. So they could be moved instead?
UPDATE 2: Sports might include mountaineering, scrambling, snorkelling, &c.
To continue with this effort: The sports tagging is not trivial, consumers should be able to tell from the tags alone what users are to expect. A first stab into that direction:
leisure=track; sport=cycling; cycling=downhill; mtb_scale=*; surface=*; max_drops_height=*; etc.
I recently opened Tag:sport=mtb - OpenStreetMap Wiki but I am not very happy. sport=* always comes with a gerund. Therefore above cycling used. But further clarification necessary, there are several kinds of cycling. I chose downhill, because this is the gallop of mtb-cycling, and in the English world bikes are not driven but ridden, like horses 
People there do not hone their switchback skills. They race down as fast as it gets.
If this ever gets to proposal: I’d propose, that leisure=track can be a sufficient base tag for single-use single-direction MTB Downhill pistes in a bike park e.g. Where other modes of transport allowed/practised dual tagging no problem.
PS: The editor warning: sports on a way not closed, why that?
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Huh?! sport=* always comes with name of the sport, however it is called in common language.
The issue here is what to do with “complex” sports such as athletics or cycling, which have so many sub-sports (each having its own sub-sub-sports and/or disciplines) that the overarching name becomes almost useless.
I’m even less happy with the current state of Tag:sport=cycling - OpenStreetMap Wiki, which starts with the definition
Cycling, also called bicycling, Mountain biking or biking, is the use of bicycles for transport, recreation, or for sport.
…which is wrong on several levels: that page should be about cycling as a sport, not as a means of transport; mountain biking is a part of sport of cycling, not a synonym; and finally, is “bicycling” even a contemporary English word (never heard it used)?
Personally, I would prefer that sport=cycling is used only for road and track cycling, while sport=mtb, sport=bmx, sport=cyclocross should refer to specific sub-sports, since they wildly differ, and facilities built for one cannot be used for any other.
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Don’t hesitate to go directly for sport=downhill_mtb.
Today I put another round of polish on the Bettelwurf Bikepark. Had a chat with another rider, learned, this is not a bike park but a trail center - because it is lacking a gondola/lift. The six or seven grade scale that OSM uses also never heard of, but looking at them going down the trails, very adventurous, far beyond my limits/skills.
I did consult this though: Proposal:Bicycle sports - OpenStreetMap Wiki - which looks a bit stale? So I came up with below conundrum monster:
- area=no
- bicycle=yes
- cycling=mtb
- foot=no
- incline=down
- leisure=track
- mtb:scale=2
- mtb:type=downhill
- name=Hunds Trail
- oneway:bicycle=yes
- ref=5100
- sport=cycling
- surface=ground
What I like: sport=>cycling=>mtb=>downhill - a sequence that allows consumers to drill down the data hierarchy looking for a key that is the same as a value. So value of sport can remain a gerund and the grammar police will be happy. I’d like to solicit the opinion of @limes11 regarding correctness/completeness. At least formally; With mtb_scale I am not very proficient in, I think I am very knowledgable in sac_scale, but I received comments like “overrated!” much as “underrated!” So there may be still more to do in linked location than adding nodes to make the curves smooth there.
PS: The biggest true bike park half way close to me posts these equipment/usage rules - Safety | Bikepark Leogang
So, it’s saying I can ride uphill that track with my motocross motorcycle?
One would better put access=no, bicycle=no, foot=no, mtb=designated, oneway=yes
neither of those apply to leisure=track according to the wiki, though.
Did you mean highway=path? 
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