'It means nothing!' - Dacres not getting carried away despite smashing national discus record

Though he smashed his national discus record by more than a metre at the King of the Ring development track-and-field meet on the compound of Excelsior High School on Saturday, Fedrick Dacres, said that he is not getting carried away with expectations for the upcoming Commonwealth Games, taking place in the Gold Coast, Australia in April.

 “It means nothing going into (the) Commonwealth (Games). It doesn’t matter what you do outside, it is what you do on the day,” Dacres told The Gleaner.

Dacres threw the disc to 69.83 metres, smashing his previous mark of 68.88 he set around the same time last year. “At this point it just means that I am getting better. I am taking one step at a time,” Dacres said.

His cautious tone may have come from his experience last year. Having broken the national record and was predicted to finish among the medals, he finished fourth at the IAAF World Championship in London.

Nonetheless, he was happy with the performance on Saturday. “It was a good day. I was a bit sick before and I healed up in time and I just went out there and I just threw,” Dacres said. “It was great. My technique felt good.”

His training partner, Traves Smikle, was second with a distance of 65.74m.

Several meet records were also broken on the day. Roje Stona of St Jago High School threw 60.00m in the Boys Class 1 event. Fiona Richards of Edwin Allen won the girl’s equivalent in a meet record also of 52.43m, while Olivia Marshall of GC Foster College broke the meet record in the Women's Javelin open, with a distance of 50.20m.