Athletics was contested at the 1954 Asian Games in Manila, Philippines from May 2 to May 5.

The 1954 Asian Games, officially known as the Second Asian Games – Manila 1954 was a multi-sport event held in Manila, Philippines, from May 1 to 9, 1954. A total of 970 athletes from 19 Asian National Olympic Committees (NOCs) competed in 76 events from eight sports. The number of participating NOCs and athletes were larger than the previous Asian Games held in New Delhi in 1951. This edition of the games has a different twist where it did not implement a medal tally system to determine the overall champion but a pointing system. The pointing system is a complex system where each athlete were given points according to their achievement like position in athletics or in swimming. In the end the pointing system showed to be worthless as it simply ranked the nations the same way in the medal tally system. The pointing system was not implemented in future games ever since. Jorge B. Vargas was the head of the Philippine Amateur Athletic Federation and the Manila Asian Games Organizing Committee. With the second-place finish of the Philippines, only around 9,000 spectators attended the closing ceremony at the Rizal Memorial Stadium. The events were broadcast on radio live at DZRH and DZAQ-TV ABS-3 on delayed telecast.