He's now indisputably the best competitive programmer in the world. But it's comforting to know that he too had to slowly grow over many years starting from a mere mortal 1200 rating.
Never really liked the structure of Topcoder and similar competitions most of the "skill" is just memorizing the algorithms that show up frequently and practicing typing out the solutions fast. A great mathematician would be able to finish a math exam quicker and more accurately than a student. But someone that spends all their time practicing speedrunning math exams would smoke him, only a fool would say the speedrunner is more talented at mathematics than the mathematician that understands the material deeply and has innovated and contributed to the field.
Topcoder is kinda flawed, but competitions like the IOI and ICPC are quite legit. In addition, `tourist`is the top performer on codeforces as well as basically any competitive programming site
The wikipedia article says he qualified for the 2006 International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) at the age of 11 and got a silver medal. His 2006 starting point was already beyond most mortals.
I see no reason to criticize people that compete in this sort of thing. No different than any other intellectual sport.
I would be quick to criticize any claims that success in these sorts of competitions predicts success at delivering business value (which, unfortunately, is exactly what TopCoder's home page seems to be implying).
He's now indisputably the best competitive programmer in the world. But it's comforting to know that he too had to slowly grow over many years starting from a mere mortal 1200 rating.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gennady_Korotkevich