COMMONWEALTH Games medallist Traves Smikle is looking forward to a strong 2023 season and, hopefully, a place in the final of the men’s discus throw at the World Championships to be held in Budapest, Hungary, in August.

On Saturday the former World Under-18 bronze medallist — from Bressanone, Italy in 2019 — threw a personal best and world-leading 68.14m to win the men’s discus throw at the King of the Ring event put on by Throwers R Us at Excelsior High.

His throw was well over the World Championships qualifying mark of 67.00m and was his first personal best since 2018 when he threw 67.72m.

World Championships silver medallist Fedric Dacres was second with a season’s best 66.32m, which for now is the second best in the world, while Chad Wright was third with 59.74m, his best so far this season.

“It’s a great feeling that I have thrown over the World Championships mark and gotten that out of the way and getting a personal best,” Smikle told the Jamaica Observer. “I have never thrown over 68.00m in my life so to finally hit it, its a great feeling.”

Smikle, who hopes to compete at his third World Championships this year, says getting the mark out of the way so early is a bonus for him as he plans his preparation.

Getting the qualifying mark “sets up my season in a great way as I can now focus more on building my fitness level to take on the latter part of the season”.

The four-time national senior champion — who was eighth at the 2017 World Championships in London in 2017 but finished 12th in Eugene, Oregon, last year — says the plan for this year is to go past his previous results at that level.

“My goal for this year going into the World Championships is to improve on what I did in 2017 and 2022 — so its literally to give a better account of myself and perform better on the world stage,” Smikle said.

— Paul A Reid