Not my experience. At sports activities where I live, people come to do sports, not really to socialize. Once the sport activity is over, most go home to their kids/wives/girlfriends/etc. At least in Germany where the focus is always on the activity at hand, and socializing with strangers is a distraction from the activity you came for.
I practice 3 different sports right now (bouldering, CrossFit and dancing), hoping to maybe make some friends or find a partner out of it in this WFH world and it's all the same, once the activity is over, people want to go home, not stay and have a beer or chat. :(
Maybe I was lucky in the past but the best friends I've ever made and sometimes partners were found on the same workplace or campus, but I sure as hell feel very unlucky and miserable now, however, I really don't wish for people who don't like being in the office to be forced to come to work, that's really stupid, but this hybrid model is the norm where I live and is the worst of both worlds. Some offices are really nightmare material.
I guess it may depend on the sport group. I've had good luck with the local Basic Fit (globo-gym type outfit, but the nearby branch has some nice people), and my weighlifting club, so perhaps you may find better luck in another sports group?
Back when I lived in Marseille, I actually made a few really nice friendships from hanging out at the Prado street workout park. It was on the beach too, which was really nice.
Climbing is also quite popular, and my local climbing gyms seem rather conductive to random social interactions that could lead to deeper friendships, although honestly I don't go very ofter (less than once per month), so perhaps that's just my perception.
That said, if you're more comfortable meeting people at work, perhaps you would be happier with an office job?
How do you make friends at gyms? Here everyone has noise cancelling headphones on, focusing on their sets, and only staring at their equipment or their phone. There's no socializing with strangers going on on unless you brought your own friends, as everyone is busy to do their sets and go home.
And what's the difference between a gym and a weightlifting club? Here we have gyms, where there's free weights, machines and cardio equipment where you can do everything including weightlifting. Never heard of a weightlifting club. What do you do there besides lift weight like in any other gym? Is it done in a group or something?
well, I can only answer for my specific case, but the way I made friends at the gym was basically people noticing that I was doing the Olympic lifts and commenting on that, plus occasionally giving random compliments/technique tips to people.
By weightlifting club I mean an association centered around competitive Olympic lifting. So you train individually, but can sign up for competitions, and are generally always around competitive lifters.
I've also heard CrossFit has a good community, not sure how accurate this is, however.
Maybe try a more 'team' oriented sport? I have found padel tennis to be probably one of the most 'socializing' sports I have played (too much even for my tastes). The fact you have to play in pairs forces you to interact with someone, and is rare the game where a beer after to talk about it doesn't happen. (unless it is a weird hours).
I made also good social circles playing tennis and doing bjj, even though those are more 'individual' things, they seem to include a part of a social element to it as well.
Never tried dancing, but the times I did bouldering and crossfit, unless you were going in a group with already a beer planned after, they tend to be more start-end kind of things.
