Athletics at the 1955 World Festival of Youth and Students

Mainly contested among Eastern European athletes, it served as an alternative to the more Western European-oriented 1955 Summer International University Sports Week held in San Sebastián the same year.

The men's winners of the 1954 European Athletics Championships were greatly represented at the competition, with the eleven champions being: Ardalion Ignatyev, Lajos Szentgáli, Emil Zátopek, Yevgeniy Bulanchik, Anatoliy Yulin, Josef Doležal, Ödön Földessy, Leonid Shcherbakov, Mikhail Krivonosov, Janusz Sidło and Vasili Kuznetsov.

[1][2] In the women's events, the appearance of Australia's Shirley Strickland (a 1952 Olympic champion) added a global element to the normally European contests.

Women's European champion Nina Otkalenko won the 800 metres, while reigning Olympic champion Nina Ponomaryova won her fourth straight discus throw title at this competition (only one of two women ever to achieve that feat at the competition, after Iolanda Balaș).

Fellow Soviet Olympic champion Galina Zybina took her third world student title in the shot put.