You see this phenomenon in Rock Climbing quite clearly. There are only maybe 30 guys in the world who have climbed routes graded French 9a+ or harder. Of those, more than half are from a tiny region in Spain.
You might think that this is some weird genetic thing going on, but if you go there to investigate you'll notice something strange: your climbing improves. A lot.
Suddenly you're thrown into a world where climbing 8a (a lifetime goal for most dedicated sport climbers) is something that pretty much everybody does, often within only a year or two of starting out. Your concept of what is "hard" changes, and suddenly it doesn't seem so outrageous to get on a route that should be way over your head. It gets in your blood. You train harder. You climb harder. Just because you're there.
It's not a fluke of grading, either. You can take that ability you gained back to your home crag and demonstrate for yourself that it's real by polishing off projects that you'd been working on for years. Then you can watch it fade away over the course of maybe half a year as you slip back into climbing with your old crowd.
You might think that this is some weird genetic thing going on, but if you go there to investigate you'll notice something strange: your climbing improves. A lot.
Suddenly you're thrown into a world where climbing 8a (a lifetime goal for most dedicated sport climbers) is something that pretty much everybody does, often within only a year or two of starting out. Your concept of what is "hard" changes, and suddenly it doesn't seem so outrageous to get on a route that should be way over your head. It gets in your blood. You train harder. You climb harder. Just because you're there.
It's not a fluke of grading, either. You can take that ability you gained back to your home crag and demonstrate for yourself that it's real by polishing off projects that you'd been working on for years. Then you can watch it fade away over the course of maybe half a year as you slip back into climbing with your old crowd.