How Can You Really Measure The Greatest Olympian?

I always like it when Olympic champions from one sport go to another competition, so I was particularly touched to see Kobe Bryant, with his children in tow, watching as the magnificent Michael Phelps bid adieu to his sport by winning yet one last gold.

Phelps and Bryant are connected these days, too, because both have prompted some historical conversation. Kobe boasted that his current U.S. basketball squad could beat the sainted Dream Team of ’92, while Phelps, simply by piling up more medals, opened up the barroom debate about who might be the greatest Olympian ever.

Now, it’s hard enough comparing teams and stars from different eras in the same sport (although, I’m sorry, Kobe, but I’ll take the team Michael Jordan is playing on, and the devil take the hindmost), but to try and distinguish between players in totally different sports is a fool’s errand. Taking nothing away from Phelps’ haul, but the record for most medals that he broke was held by a gymnast — which is another sport, like swimming, where medals are more promiscuously distributed. And before Phelps passed her did anybody ever say that Larisa Latynina was the greatest Olympian?