The article implied that the Math Olympiad work didn't much result in significant results 30 years later from the work in math for the contest. You are correc

The article implied that the Math Olympiad work didn't much result in significant results 30 years later from the work in math for the contest. You are correct that the OP didn't directly say that the "training" of the "kids" was poor. My view of such high school math competitions is that they waste the time and effort of the students and, otherwise, with good guidance, there would be significant results from the efforts 30 years later. In this sense, then the training was a "poor job". But the OP did not say that directly -- that's my interpretation, heavily from what I saw used as efforts to have some high school students do better in math -- the efforts were a waste of time for all concerned and because the people directing the efforts didn't know enough math.