I don't find this surprising. I played around on Top Coder enough to reach the first division but the problems presented were in no way related to my day to day

I don't find this surprising. I played around on Top Coder enough to reach the first division but the problems presented were in no way related to my day to day work. While the people that did very well (I never got anywhere once I hit the top grade) might have had an excellent command of very specific data structures and techniques, non of the code would have been very useful in the real world. If I was interviewing someone, a career as a competitive programmer would not be a detriment but it would not count for very much overall. We are looking for creative thinkers that can work as a team.