This is not a “hate on” question. I am actually curious. Why is it heavily touted Simon Biles is the Gymnastics GOAT when Larisa Latynina surpassed Biles Olympic metal total with a total of 18 metals? She is only behind Micheal Phillips in most Olympic metals won.
It’s hard to compare them because gymnastics has progressed so much since Larisa competed, but Simone competes skills at such a more challenging level with such good execution that it’s very unlikely Larisa would be able to come anywhere close to her even if she came up training and competing today. If you look at the gymnasts Simone is competing against today, a lot of them are very talented, and still Simone is able to dominate against them at insane margins. The fact that she has never lost an All-Around competition since debuting in 2013 speaks to her dominance, and I find it unlikely that the gymnasts competing against Simone now would all just be less talented than Larisa’s competition. Also, in terms of medaling, Larisa competed in a time when there was a medal competition called a team portable apparatus, so she had a greater availability of medals to win. In addition, gymnastics also has yearly world championships that are considered in the GOAT rankings & Simone has the record of most world championship medals and most world championships gold medals, far surpassing Larisa and any other gymnast by a large amount.
To be fair, during Larisa’s time World’s were only held every 4 years. Not that I"m disagreeing about Simone being the GOATj(She is)