REIGNING World Youth and World Junior discus champion Fedrick Dacres has set his sights on the IAAF World Championships in Athletics in Moscow, Russia, this August.

Dacres, who turns 19 on February 28, started his season with 56.95m in the discus throw and 17.70m in the shot put at the JC/WATA Invitational track and field meeting at that school’s Old Hope Road headquarters on Saturday.

Dacres won gold in all his major outings in 2012 — taking the discus titles at the CAC Junior Championships in San Salvador, the Carifta Championships in Hamilton, Bermuda, and the World Junior Championships in Barcelona, Spain.

He explained his interest in this year’s senior world track and field championships.

“There is no international junior meet this year, so I’m just kind of aiming for another international meet which would be the World Champs and so I’m just working towards that. We will still have the junior meets, but the main aim is the World Champs,” he said.

The ‘A’ standard for the men’s discus is 66m, while the ‘B’ standard is 64m; and the Calabar High School student told the Jamaica Observer that he is hoping to throw any distance over 64m as the season progresses.

“I’m just training hard. I would love to make the ‘A’ standard, but right now I feel like it’s kind of out of my reach, so I just have to do my best to get to the ‘B’ standard,” he said.

The tall Dacres, who may be seen as the antithesis of the average thrower because of his more slender build — something he has told the Observer he has used to his advantage — said he was not entirely pleased with Saturday’s opening performance.

“I’m not really happy with those throws. I could have done much better, but I just have to go back to the drawing board and come better next time,” he said, adding that he had a long week before the competition, while stating that he was not making excuses for his throws.

His previous best in the discus was 51.82m, while he threw a personal best 18.32m at the Big Shot invitational at St Hugh’s in Kingston last year.

The 2011 World Youth Champion added that he will be working on building his strength over the next few months.

“(And) I have to get my technique up to a high standard to compete with the big guys because they are strong. They don’t have to depend on a good technique as a weak guy like me would have to. I’m always trying to build because I guess I was not really made to be as big as the other guys. I can still work with it because it is serving me well so far.”

“It’s more strength this year because last year was the juniors and I could get by with a little bit of strength because I have my speed and I have my power, but the big guys are stronger and some of them are faster and there are more powerful than I am, so I really can’t get by with the strength that I had.”

Meanwhile, Dacres, who is in his last year of high school, told said while his options remain open, he is thinking about joining his former Calabar teammate Traves Smikle at the University of the West Indies when his high school career ends.

Smikle, who competed at the Olympic Games in London last year, decided that his best option for improvement in his chosen discipline was to stay home while he continues to work with coach Julian Robinson, who also coaches Dacres.