The 1989 Asian Athletics Championships was the eighth edition of the international outdoor athletics competition between Asian nations, organised by the Asian Athletics Association. The six-day competition was held from 14–19 November at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi, India. It featured 40 events, 22 for men and 18 for women, with the steeplechase, pole vault, triple jump and hammer throw competitions being for men only. China comfortably topped the medal table, winning over half the events with 21 golds among a total of 42. The host nation, India, was clear runner-up with eight golds and 22 medals, while Japan (14 medals) was the only other nation to breach double figures. A total of 19 nations reached the medal table.

India's P. T. Usha was the stand-out athlete of the tournament with four gold medals and one silver. She won the 200 metres, 400 metres, 400 metres hurdles and 4 × 400 metres relay, as well as being the 100 metres runner-up. Another Indian runner, Shiny Abraham, won the 800 metres and was second in the 400 m. China's Zhong Huandi claimed a distance double in the women's 3000 metres and 10,000 metres.

Event	Gold		Silver		Bronze
100 metres	Zheng Chen  China	10.35	Li Tao  China	10.42	Takayuki Nakamichi  Japan	10.48
200 metres	Yoshiyuki Okuyama  Japan	20.80	Khalid Jouma Ibrahim  Bahrain	21.07	Cai Jianming  China	21.18
400 metres	Ibrahim Ismail Muftah  Qatar	45.6	Mohammed Al-Malki  Oman	45.62	Zhao Cunlin  China	46.68
800 metres	Faramarz Roustaeifar  Iran	1:51.36	Yoshikazu Tachi  Japan	1:51.42	Vijaya Kumaran  India	1:51.85
1500 metres	Bahadur Prasad  India	3:45.77	Ram Niwas  India	3:46.53	Mohamed Suleiman  Qatar	3:47.95
5000 metres	Zhang Guowei  China	13:52.37	Bahadur Prasad  India	13:58.93	Ryu Ok-hyon  North Korea	14:02.39
10,000 metres	Ryu Ok-hyon  North Korea	29:07.93	Zhang Guowei  China	29:14.01	Muhammad Mousa  Pakistan	29:18.78
3000 metres steeplechase	Deena Ram  India	8:48.46	Mohammed al-Dosari  Saudi Arabia	8:48.77	Mohamed Suleiman  Qatar	8:49.35
110 metres hurdles	Yu Zhicheng  China	14.18	Nagi Ghazi  Iraq	14.20	Osamu Matsue  Japan	14.36
400 metres hurdles	Hwang Hong-cheol  South Korea	50.29	Takashi Kiyokawa  Japan	50.94	Suleiman Houielah  Syria	51.26
4 × 100 metres relay	China Li Tao Cai Jianming Li Feng Zheng Chen	39.28	Japan Naotaka Momota Takayuki Nakamichi Yoshihiro Kato Yoshiyuki Okuyama	39.64	Qatar Talal Mansour Saad Muftah Mubarak Al-Kuwari Rashid Sheban Marzouk Jaseem Mahboob	39.89
4 × 400 metres relay	Japan Isamu Murata Shigeaki Matsunaga Seiichi Ibe Yoshikazu Tachi	3:07.20	India Arjun Devaiah P.V. Raju Ayyapan Durai C. Muralidharan	3:07.22	Malaysia Mohamed Nordin Jadi Kenny Martin Ramasamy Haridas Hamdi Jaafar	3:11.08
20 kilometres race walk	Hirofumi Sakai  Japan	1:33:41	Chen Helin  China	1:34:19	Baldev Singh  India	1:35:52
High jump	Cho Hyun-wook  South Korea	2.19	Liu Yunpeng  China	2.17	Abdullah Mohamed Al-Sheib  Qatar	2.14
Pole vault	Liang Xueren  China	5.40	Huang Weiping  China	5.20	Ku Chin-shui  Chinese Taipei	5.20
Long jump	Nai Hui-fang  Chinese Taipei	8.07w	Chen Zunrong  China	7.88	Kim Won-jin  South Korea	7.83
Triple jump	Chen Yanping  China	16.95	Du Benzhong  China	16.68	Nai Hui-fang  Chinese Taipei	16.65
Shot put	Balwinder Singh  India	18.16	Khalid Salman Al-Khalidi  Saudi Arabia	17.76	Shirappa D. Eashan  India	17.71
Discus throw	Zhang Jinglong  China	57.12	Hu Tao  China	56.02	Shakti Singh  India	55.60
Hammer throw	Bi Zhong  China	68.94	Nobuhiro Todoroki  Japan	66.04	Xie Yingqi  China	65.72
Javelin throw	Wang Wenzhong  China	76.38	Ghanem Mabrouk Zaid Johar  Kuwait	72.38	Wang Yao-Tsung  Chinese Taipei	71.94
Decathlon	Lee Fu-an  Chinese Taipei	7703	Gong Guohua  China	7649	Peng Huang-shu  Chinese Taipei	7119

Event	Gold		Silver		Bronze
100 metres	Zhang Caihua  China	11.65	P. T. Usha  India	11.74	Wang Huei-chen  Chinese Taipei	11.84
200 metres	P. T. Usha  India	23.27	Ashwini Nachappa  India	23.54	Zhang Xiaoqiong  China	23.88
400 metres	P. T. Usha  India	51.90	Shiny Abraham  India	52.40	Josephine Mary Singarayar  Malaysia	52.65
800 metres	Shiny Abraham  India	2:04.76	Rosa Kutty  India	2:07.75	Haruko Hashimoto  Japan	2:09.78
1500 metres	Khin Khin Htwe  Myanmar	4:21.06	Kim Chun-Mae  North Korea	4:23.75	Feng Yanbo  China	4:23.86
3000 metres	Zhong Huandi  China	9:05.20	Kim Chun-Mae  North Korea	9:11.55	Khin Khin Htwe  Myanmar	9:22.80
10,000 metres	Zhong Huandi  China	32:25.57	Mun Gyong-ae  North Korea	33:23.91	Paek Do-Jong  North Korea	34:00.38
100 metres hurdles	Liu Huajin  China	13.30	Feng Yinghua  China	13.54	Naomi Jojima  Japan	13.97
400 metres hurdles	P. T. Usha  India	56.14	Chen Yuying  China	56.24	Chen Dongmei  China	57.46
4 × 100 metres relay	China Li Shuxiang Liu Huajin Zhang Caihua Zhang Xiaoqiong	44.84	India Kutty Saramma PT Usha Ashwini Nachappa Sany Joseph	44.87	Thailand Nednapa Chommuak Ratjai Sripet Pornpim Srisurat Rewadee Srithoa	45.58
4 × 400 metres relay	India PT Usha Shiny Abraham Mercy Matthews-Kuttan Kutty Saramma	3:32.95	China Sun Sumei Zhang Xiaoqiong Chen Juying Chen Dongmei	3:37.13	Japan Chizuko Akimoto Kozue Tanaka Haruko Hashimoto Kimiko Yokoyama	3:45.18
10,000 metres race walk	Chen Yueling  China	48:59.86	Kavita Garari  India	50:30.90	Ma Kyin Lwan  Myanmar	50:32.92
High jump	Jin Ling  China	1.89	Kim Hui-seon  South Korea	1.87	Su Cun-Yueh  Chinese Taipei	1.81
Long jump	Liu Shuzhen  China	6.36	Elma Muros  Philippines	6.17	Reeth Abraham  India	6.15
Shot put	Huang Zhihong  China	19.69	Sui Xinmei  China	19.29	Chong Chun-Hwa  North Korea	14.53
Discus throw	Yu Hourun  China	61.92	Ikuko Kitamori  Japan	51.78	Pak In-Ok  North Korea	47.12
Javelin throw	Xin Xiaoli  China	58.30	Xu Demei  China	57.32	Emi Matsui  Japan	55.30
Heptathlon	Dong Yuping  China	6042	Ma Miaolan  China	6021	Ma Chun-ping  Chinese Taipei	5149

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	China (CHN)	21	15	6	42
2	India (IND)	8	9	5	22
3	Japan (JPN)	3	5	6	14
4	South Korea (KOR)	2	1	1	4
5	Chinese Taipei (TPE)	2	0	7	9
6	North Korea (PRK)	1	3	4	8
7	Qatar (QAT)	1	0	4	5
8	Myanmar (MYA)	1	0	2	3
9	Iran (IRN)	1	0	0	1
10	Saudi Arabia (KSA)	0	2	0	2
11	Bahrain (BHR)	0	1	0	1
	Iraq (IRQ)	0	1	0	1
	Kuwait (KUW)	0	1	0	1
	Oman (OMN)	0	1	0	1
	Philippines (PHI)	0	1	0	1
16	Malaysia (MAS)	0	0	2	2
17	Pakistan (PAK)	0	0	1	1
	Syria (SYR)	0	0	1	1
	Thailand (THA)	0	0	1	1
Totals (19 entries)		40	40	40	120

• 1989 in athletics (track and field)

• Asian Championships. GBR Athletics. Retrieved 2019-08-21.