Each of the elites of each country was being supported by powerful families in one way or another to get the best pieces of equipment as quickly as possible; in some cases, even the government of the country itself was supporting these people! Each of them possessed terrifying reaction speed and reflexes, bringing these characteristics from the real world to the virtual world, which helped them to become flood dragons in the midst of a crowd of small fishes.
How could such people admit that they were inferior to anyone else? In fact, it was most likely that none of them had even thought for a moment about defeat. They might see some people as their rivals, but they would never think of defeat!
As for Shiva? No one knew him in the past; it was a name that only came to light a month after the release of Samsara Online. Precisely because of this, nobody paid too much attention to the Chinese player who was slowly starting to become the world's focus.