MONTEGO BAY, St James — Nesta Carter, Jamaica’s fastest man so far this season, has upped his preparations for the IAAF World Championships to be held in Moscow next month.

Carter, who ran a season’s best 9.87 seconds to win a 100m race at an IAAF World Challenge meeting in Madrid, Spain, last weekend, released a statement from the MVP training base in Lignano, Italy, on Thursday, saying: “I am feeling fitter and faster than ever before. My 9.87 seconds (season’s best) is a stepping stone to my 2013 World Champs.”

Carter, who was fourth at the JAAA National Senior Championships in June, and earned a place in the relay pool, will now replace outgoing champion Yohan Blake in the Jamaican line-up in the men’s 100m at the World Championships that starts on August 10.

Blake had received a bye to the championships after he won the gold medal in the last Championships in Daegu, South Korea, in 2011, but announced his withdrawal from the championships earlier this week after he failed to get over a hamstring injury that he suffered in April.

Usain Bolt, who had been disqualified from the 100m final in Daegu after a false start as he attempted to defend his title from Berlin, Germany, in 2009, will be given the bye, as he is the IAAF Diamond League champion.

Kemar Bailey-Cole and Nickel Ashmeade, who were second and third, respectively, in the final at the National Trials, will complete Jamaica’s line-up in the men’s 100m, which starts on the first day of the Championships.

Carter was a finalist in the 100m in Daegu, and has led off several of Jamaica’s 4x100m teams to gold medals and world records at the World Championships and Olympic Games. He pulled out of a meeting in Lucerne, Switzerland, on Wednesday with a thigh strain, but is expected to be healthy in time for a Diamond League meeting in London next week.