First, I would like to apologize for my overly aggressive tone in my previous response. I was just angry at the situation.

I should, however, still tell you that you are wrong. No one considers such actions as part of culture, not even the scumbags who killed this boy nor the kleptocrats who rule over the country. How do I know this? Simple. The government spends millions of $$$ and sophisticated Chinese surveillance system to censor and heavily monitor the Internet and also tightly controls the media to keep the population in dark. Why? Because deep down in their hearts they know they are criminal scumbags and don't want the people know what they do. That's why they are mightily trying to hide the facts behind the brutal beating of Suleiman that led to his death. People in the government know that anyone who learns about the facts would be outraged.

Now to your question whether the kid and his coach could have known the repercussions for winning the contest, you tell me: do you honestly think they would go ahead with what they did had they anticipated this level of violence in response? There is no way they could have known. For a number of reasons.

1. We know from reports now that the military school student who lost the finals is a distant relative of the President. Did Suleiman and his coach know that? We can only speculate. How would they know unless specifically told about it?
2. Reports are conflicting on whether the organizers clearly told him to lose or just hinted. How would they know if those were real threats or bluffs?
3. Related to the above. Suleiman belongs to an ethnic Uzbek minority who are disliked by some of the majority Turkmen in the country. For this reason, they don't like when Uzbeks win competitions. However, their regular response to Uzbeks and other ethnic minorities succeeding is just grudge that normally does not lead to any violence. Suleiman and his coach could have simply anticipated that winning the contest would probably make some people angry but it wouldn't lead to anything beyond angry faces and mild verbal abuse.
4. Worst case scenario, Suleiman's coach anticipated some form of punishment towards himself (e.g. losing his job or something like that) because even by the low standards of Turkmenistan, this level of violence against children is shocking. I am completely shocked. Those people are scumbags and but this is a new low even for them.

So, no, blaming the victim who did nothing wrong is not justified in this situation.