It's probably a bug; you (shouldn't) get new champions for re-crossing a fame threshold you've already passed. The "next champion" message should indicate where you next threshold that you haven't yet crossed is.
I'm guessing that if you're training torchbearers, you have already crossed the 100 and 200 fame thresholds too, so it really shouldn't have had the 50 fame message either.
Did you do this in a real game, or is this in cheat mode for testing/replication?
