The Asian Track and Field Championships were initially planned at the 1962 Asian Games through the initiative of Major General Aziz Salleh the Chief of the Indonesian Federation (PASI) but went a-begging by the “emergence” of the ill-conceived first and last Games of the Emerging Forces (GANEFO).
The Malaysian Amateur Athletic Union President Tan Sri Mohamed Ghazali Shafie tried to revive the idea to hold the Championships at the 1966 Asian Games at Bangkok but met no better fate as circumstances outside the control of athletics idealists intervened.