CNN.
Despite poor funding and out of date computers, Andrei Lopatin and Victor Petrov won the World Computer Programming Olympics

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (CNN) -- Olympic champions at St. Petersburg State University play chess.

For the second year in a row, a college that cannot afford modern computers has won the World Computer Programming Olympics, beating more than 2,000 of the best and richest universities in the world.

Andrei Terekhov, the chairman of the universityšs software engineering department, is at a loss to explain the back-to-back victories.

"The situation is very bad. Teachers are very poor. The university is very poor... I cannot explain it to you. Read Dostoevsky. I have no other answer. We're Russians. That is the answer."

Champions Andrei Lopatin and Victor Petrov had five hours to solve nine problems. They finished two hours ahead of the nearest competition.

"You need concentration, determination, a quick reaction to emerging problems," the 20-year-old Lopatin said. "You just have to think fast. Efficiency is the key word."

Natural talent is just part of the St. Petersburg success story.

They start early here. The best students are picked out aged 12. Then they are trained in mathematics for six hours a day.

It is a race where scarce resources are given only to the best.

To be admitted to this class, a student must have already won a local competition in mathematics. The selection goes on each year -- first regional, then city, national, and finally, international contests.

Each level requires even more training, according to the department chair.

"It is serious mathematics at an early age," said schoolteacher Lyudmila Kulagina. "That's the basis for our victories in all of the Olympics. But it's heavy labor. Even physically, some children can't bear it."

For the champions therešs a $3,000 prize, a new laptop computer, and a flood of job offers from the West. But this year's winners plan to stay at home.

Petrov, 18, said: "Russia is the place I was born. I speak Russian, I think in Russian. I can't just leave it like that."

Both winners say they plan to use the prize money to buy upgrades for their computers.

Russian College Spawns Computer Champs
Despite a lack of modern computers, students triumph at World Computer Programming Olympics

Russia's Internet Whiz Kid Tackles the News
With a staff of 24, Anton Nosik brings 24-hour breaking news to Russia's Web users

Telecom prize transforms Irish town
Beneath its picturesque streets, Ennis is now wired with a $14 million digital fibre ring

Phones keep Sweden's teens mobile
With 80 percent of teen-agers in Scandinavia now having a phone, is the next generation redefining communication?

Bridging the Gap
Is technology relevant? Ask a wheelchair-bound ham operator, poor Indian farmers and an expat son worried about his ill dad

We're All Cyberlab Rats
Anthropologists have deserted the bush to study modern techno-man and how he's adapting to a world of wild gadgets

Wired, But a Bit Worried
Will interactivity improve our lives? TIME's readers praise easy communication and openness but think we should slow down

Raising Flags on the High-Tech Highway
Marso's invisible "killer" is not a person, but a satellite that seeks and destroys mobile phone users with a zap from outer space

Europe Tests Waters of e-Politics
"Britain is not ready for a Net election," says Mo Mowlam, a plain-speaking British politician

E-innovation, Estonian-style
Some countries have an e-minister. Cutting-edge Estonia has an e-Cabinet

Firms Take IT to the Poor
People live on little more than a dollar a day in Ghana, west Africa, putting them squarely on the have-not side of a growing digital divide

Helping People to Help Themselves
CNN's Charles Hodson recently interviewed Carly Fiorina, CEO of Hewlett-Packard, on the digital divide