[motohagiography]

The problem with this argument is that it's equivalent to saying to someone in the Olympics that they're just there because of sample and survivor bias, which ignores the intrinsic counterfactual assumption.

Yes, under some counterfactual condition, there are better Olympians, but that imaginary world is not equivalent or meaningful in the real and current one. This is the basic conceit of a lot of critical theories and ideas, they aren't rooted in the real.