Being good at athletics requires specific good genetics.
> acquiring intellectual territory
Analytical intellect is not a valued trait in the current society. It will not increase your status in most cases. It actively works against you in certain social structures. Unless your intellectual territory grants you significant material benefits, there's no use out of it.
What society? I see plenty of people in whose eyes intellect is valued. Who cares about the rest?
War is good business. Political power is absolutely something worth being bought/sought. Long as that is the case, the power hungry gonna seek power to wield, and they'll wield it to to their own ends; and realistically, once they're locked in as having it, it isn't for you or anyone else ultimately.
Instead of becoming a president and starting wars of aggression, why not try sports? How about becoming an academic, an expert in some esoteric field, and spend your days acquiring intellectual territory and terrorising your intellectual opponents?
Or use your greed to start a business that somehow ends up benefiting us all even whilst making you richer than all of us.