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- The 1886 AAA Championships was an outdoor track and field competition organised by the Amateur Athletic Association (AAA), held on Saturday 3 July at Stamford Bridge, London, England. Competitions took place in magnificent, almost tropical, weather, that was, if anything, too hot for athletes in the longer events. The attendance was lower than on previous occasions with not more than two thousand spectators inside the ground when competition commenced at three o'clock in the afternoon. The band of the 4th Middlesex Regiment entertained spectators between events and the prizes were presented by Mrs Montague Shearman, wife of the President of the AAAs and the 440 yards champion in 1880. The fourteen events on the programme were for men only, with heats and finals all held on the same day, with the exception of the 10 miles race, which was held on the following Monday, 5 July, at the same venue. The programme was changed slightly, placing the 880 yard final first in the order of events to separate it as much as possible from the 1 mile. In subsequent years they swapped the 880 yards and 1 mile over, to make the 1 mile as far as possible from the 4 miles. There were no heats in the field events, some of which had only two or three competitors, and the only track event in which heats were necessary was the 100 yards. It was customary at the time for race winners only to have their performances recorded, therefore, in the tables below other competitors are shown with the distance each man was behind the man in front. Field event performances are shown in feet and inches as they were originally measured, with a conversion to metric measurement in parentheses. Conversions have been obtained using the International Metric Conversion Tables published by the International Amateur Athletics Federation in 1970. The only competitor from outside of Great Britain was Peter James from Sydney, who competed without distinction in the 100 yards. He was the first Australian competitor since Bernhard Wise won the mile in 1881. The first Australian athletic championship was held at Moore Park, Sydney, in May 1890. The editor of a Dublin newspaper, The Sport, sponsored a "team" of three athletes from Ireland to come to the championship, paying their travel and accommodation expenses for their stay at the Bedford Head Hotel in Tottenham Court Road, London. Irish athletes had won three events at the championship in 1885 and they were looking to repeat their success. Only four 1885 champions returned to defend their titles. Charles Daft (Notts Forest FC) the 120 yard hurdles title, James Jervis (Liverpool H.) defended the 7 miles walk, John Purcell (Dublin AC) the long jump, and Thomas Ray (Ulverston AC) the pole vault. Walter George and William Snook, both of Moseley Harriers, who had between them won eighteen championships at distances from 880 yards to 10 miles, had both turned professional and the opportunity this presented caused entries to rise in many events, with over seventy entries from thirty-six different clubs. Two world records were equalled during the afternoon and championship best performances were set in four different events. Arthur Wharton (Cleveland Coll.), ran ten seconds for the 100 yards in both heat and final to erase all previous doubtful marks at the distance from the record books. Wharton had beaten James Cowie, the reigning champion, at Widnes on 5 June and so was not a completely unknown athlete, but with Cowie injured and unable to defend his crown the missionary student from Jamestown in Ghana exceeded all expectations and won convincingly by a clear yard. In the process he also became the first black athlete to win a AAA Championship title at any event. Charles Daft (Notts Forest FC) equalled the world record of 16 seconds in the 120 yard hurdles to retain the title he had won last year, and give Notts Forest Football Club their third consecutive win, making them the most succesfull club at this event so far. Championship best marks were also set by Charles Wood (Blackheath H.) in the 440 yards, who became the first British amateur to break 50 seconds for the distance, and by James Mitchel (Gaelic AA), from Emly, County Tipperary in Ireland, in winning the hammer. Thomas Ray (Ulverston AC) won the pole vault for the sixth time, the last three of them on consecutive occasions. (en)
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- The 1886 AAA Championships was an outdoor track and field competition organised by the Amateur Athletic Association (AAA), held on Saturday 3 July at Stamford Bridge, London, England. Competitions took place in magnificent, almost tropical, weather, that was, if anything, too hot for athletes in the longer events. The attendance was lower than on previous occasions with not more than two thousand spectators inside the ground when competition commenced at three o'clock in the afternoon. The band of the 4th Middlesex Regiment entertained spectators between events and the prizes were presented by Mrs Montague Shearman, wife of the President of the AAAs and the 440 yards champion in 1880. (en)
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