Pretty close to all the gold medalists at last year's ACM competition were regular competitors on TopCoder, including the majority of the MIT team (and the coac

Pretty close to all the gold medalists at last year's ACM competition were regular competitors on TopCoder, including the majority of the MIT team (and the coach). The role of culture can't be underestimated: in some places academic competitions are a really big deal. There are major centers for it: St. Peterburg in Russia, Waterloo in Canada, Zhejiang University and Shanghai Jiao Tong in China, and especially Warsaw University in Poland. Just competing in TopCoder over the past year or so, I've solved literally hundreds of tricky algorithmic problems, under heavy time pressure, exactly. The best competitors have solved literally thousands of difficult challenges. It's really no wonder that they do so well. However, I don't think it's unfathomable discipline: I think it's an environment that encourages it.