Athletics at the 1994 South American Games

Athletics events at the 1994 South American Games were held at the Polideportivo Misael Delgado in Valencia, Venezuela. A total of 43 events were contested, 24 by men and 19 by women.

Following a controversy between Sabino Hernández, president of the Comité Olímpico Ecuatoriano and Jacobo Bucaram, president of the Federación Ecuatoriana de Atletismo in the context of funding the number of athletes to travel to the games (22 versus 33 athletes), Ecuador did not participate in this year's athletics competitions.

On the other hand, athletics heavyweights Brazil (although only with a small delegation) and Colombia competed for the first time, leading to a noticeable improvement of the results as evident from the setting of (about) 26 games records.

Medal summary
Medal winners were published in a book written by Argentinian journalist Ernesto Rodríguez III with support of the Argentine Olympic Committee (Spanish: Comité Olímpico Argentino) under the auspices of the Ministry of Education (Spanish: Ministerio de Educación de la Nación) in collaboration with the Office of Sports (Spanish: Secretaría de Deporte de la Nación). Eduardo Biscayart supplied the list of winners and their results. Further results were published elsewhere.