Los Angeles officials brimmed with confidence a decade ago as they urged the International Olympic Committee to make the city the first in the U.S. to host the Summer Olympics since 1996.
“Follow the sun,” they said in the official bid for the Games in 2015. Los Angeles promised terrific weather, a $1 billion Olympic Village to house athletes, a state-of-the-art transit system that would allow for a car-free Olympics and a ready-to-go network of stadiums and arenas.
But three years before the opening of the 2028 Summer Olympics, those ambitious promises have been scaled back, supplanted by obstacles that are threatening to undercut preparations for an event that would test this city’s wits and resources even in the best of times.