First, and most importantly, congratulations to the 45 athletes who were selected to participate in the Cadet June Camp or the trips to Hungary and Serbia.
Second, to avoid detracting from the accomplishments of these athletes, we have (at the suggestion of some of our colleagues) moved the discussion about the influence of money and politics in the ODP selection process to another thread.
In terms of the cadet team players missing JOs, it does not make sense. After JOs conclude, there are still eight full days before the World’s begin in Zagreb. Typically, it only takes two to three days to adjust to jet lag. For the players’ overall readiness and development, it would make far more sense for them to remain engaged and compete in one of the top youth competitions, such as JOs, before going on to compete at Worlds.
From a mental and team perspective, it would be the wrong decision to prevent them from contributing to and participating in such an important competition with the teams they have trained and competed with throughout the whole year.
The U20 team went early and trained with Croatia and Hungary prior to worlds. Maybe the cadet team is doing something similar which would benefit them far more than playing JOs as the level is significantly higher training with those teams in that environment.
I love JOs. It is one of the top youth competitions in the world and competitors are noticeably better players after the tournament than they were before, but the amount of development isn’t on the level of what those fortunate Worlds kids will get.
Setting aside the team bonding and getting everyone on the same page for Worlds, no JO teams I know of runs two-a-days for weeks beforehand, or maintain focus by sequestering the team together for training, meals, and downtime in between.
The ones I feel for are the teammates on club teams who will have to go into JOs with holes in their rosters.
Some of the high schools teams/clubs run double day practice and do exactly what you described in the summer. And agree with you 100%, that if they take those players away during the JOs some of the teams will have big holes in their rosters, which sucks.