Karthik Adapa, Cayman’s most decorated Orkney 2025 International Island Games athlete, is set to compete at the 53rd FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships.
Adapa was among the 32-delegate Cayman team that competed at the Islands Games in July where he secured a personal medal count of 11 (six gold, two silver, and three bronze).
The 20-year-old’s first-time entry onto the world stage for the upcoming world championships will see him make efforts to showcase his “upgrade” since Orkney.
“I am most excited to showcase the new additions to my routines,” Adapa said. “I have been putting in a lot of time and effort to upgrade as much as I can.”
During the world championships, he will be competing in the full twisting Kasamatsu vault for the first time, and he says he is “[really] looking forward to that”.
In addition to vault, he will compete in five other events – floor, pommel horse, still rings, parallel bars, and high bar – at the competition, which runs from 19-25 Oct. in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Amongst the list of his events, Adapa highlighted floor and vault as his current area of “largest skills and most amount of upgrading”.
Perserverance despite challenges
Reflecting on his preparation, he said it is one that has involved significant sacrifice.
“My training has been some of the most intense I have done before. I have sacrificed a lot of my island time summer break to completely dedicate myself to two extra months of training in Nottingham, England where I am currently a student.”
Adding to the transparency of his preparation leading up to the world championships, he shared that he faced a lot more challenges than what he thinks “a lot of people think.”
“My body has been through [so much] keeping up with the new regimen. Competitive gymnastics is not for the weak-willed,” he said.
“Whether it was back pain, ankle joints [being] sore or taking a nasty fall, it got quite tough at some points.”
Despite the physical toll, he is ready to face the challenge, noting that he will be competing on a recovering shoulder that had previously struggled to support him.
“Luckily with plenty of rest and cautious training I’ve been feeling a lot better and I am feeling confident about my ability to compete the coming weekend,” he said.
This year’s world championships will consist solely of individual events, as team competitions are not held in the year immediately after the Olympic Games.
While this competition is a solo effort, Adapa’s next major event is the 2026 Central American and Caribbean Games where he admitted, “International events with other Caymanians [are] always nicer than alone”.
