Обсуждение на форуме продолжилось, поэтому дополнение:

[quote="Sensiblu"]I'm pretty constant. I can improve my typing from 400-450 cpm with no more that 100 cpm. I just can't although I practice a lot for those 100 cpm...[/quote]
Do you mean improving during a session? Then, I suppose, "bottom" and "upper" limits of your skills don't differ much as yet. It will come with many-years-practice, I think :)
For me (in the Russian), to improve up to 150 cpm during a session is nearly normal. For high records - up to 200 is needed, though! That's rather hard - not for my everyday practice ))))

As I see the directions of work:
= to raise one's level "from top to bottom" - fast typing short texts;
= "from bottom to top" - typing very long texts at a low speed 1-2 hours a day.

[quote="Sensiblu"]And about the flags.. well I'm sure not a xenophobe or something like that but I tend to extend the competition to country vs country in my mind. It's more thrilling I guess :))[/quote]
Yes I think you are right. So it is with the Big Sports. There certainly should have been some reasoning for the tradition getting that way...

Somebody on the forum has compared Urikor' participants with "Russia Olympic team" - everybody felt the joke but it looked splendid nevertheless :)