The article is correct. It's the same attitude that with any form of competition that was deemed a matter of national prestige in USSR: popularized by state throughout all outlets, industrialized through a ranks of special schools and training facilities, and usually devoid of fun that was initially behind the whole thing.

You'd have same approach with sports, ballet, or even high-school level contests in natural science. If there'd existed a world-renowned competition in crosswords, rest assured USSR would have had a nation-wide network of crosswording schools that would've enlisted talented kids at age of 5, three state-approved categories of crossword-manship (and one for juniors) and crossword solving discretely featured in every third motion picture.

But I digress. If you ever got to being a candidate for, say, a national senior-school physics competition, you'd be transferred to region's best teachers. They would train you like a circus dog, showing you the tricks and running you through hundreds of assignments encountered in previous years, with no focus on the essence of physics. Granted you'd know a lot about pulleys and levers and displacement, but it wouldn't make you any good physicist.