NEWPORT BEACH, CALIF. — Sixteen-year-old Brighton Zeuner would prefer not to compare herself with other athletes. When the urge hits, “I stop myself,” she says. “It's not healthy at all. I just focus on myself.” But the candles on her birthday cake this summer were so few that outsiders can be forgiven for engaging in a little side-by-side appraisal of Zeuner’s accomplishments at age 16 against those of the most dominant sportswomen of our time.
Zeuner was just eight when Simone Biles turned 16, the year that the future Olympian claimed her first world all-around gymnastics title. Sixteen-year-old Megan Rapinoe was just a skilled club player in the backwoods of Northern California.