across sexes is apples to oranges. When you look at males across the board yeah of course there are genetic discrepancies that result in some performing better than others. But when you look at athletes who compete with one another the differences are much smaller. Yeah Phelps had a body built for swimming but without the time and effort of training he still could have been beaten and has been beaten.

Comparing across sexes though is a totally different analysis. Take a male athlete who is underperforming against his male counterparts and he still may be an Olympian as a woman. I’m a HS running back who ran track. I ran the 400 and was on JV so I wasn’t very good but my best time would have had me just outside of women qualifications at the Olympics. Again I was sub par as a male runner but would have been a stellar women runner.