At the city level (stadiums, road transport and accommodation), the mayor insists preparations are going well.
Many of the stadiums, road projects, public-transit extensions and landscaping projects in Athens were completed days before the Olympics.
When New Delhi hosted the ninth Asian Games in 1982, a kind of regional Olympics involving 3,500 athletes from 35 nations, half a dozen new hotels were built, along with three major stadiums, road improvements and housing tracts for the participants.
Yet their contract with UEFA, European soccer's governing body, locked them into expensive new stadiums, roads, railroad improvements, airports and hotels.
China, the No. 1 importer, has granted Angola loans of more than $5 billion and is building stadiums, roads and an airport expansion.
All four cities produced fat "bid books" explaining why they would be the best showcase and listing the projected costs of stadiums, roads and accommodation.The pre-tournament favourite was knocked out early on.
The organizers have repeatedly missed construction deadlines, and much of the work on stadiums, roads and other infrastructure did not begin in earnest until 2008, roughly five years after the city won the bid for the event.
All four cities have produced fat "bid books" explaining why they will be the best showcase and listing the projected costs of stadiums, roads and accommodation.Would-be hosts have to promise more than a great (and profitable) party.
Most host countries are acutely aware that breaking even, let alone making a profit from the games, is a tall order, especially if they have to build new infrastructure such as stadiums, roads and railways.
China has given billions in loans and aid to Caribbean nations to build stadiums, roads, ports and tourist resorts, and Mr. Xi's visit came days after Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. met with 15 regional leaders in Trinidad, drawing a sharp contrast about what the two countries had to offer the area's tiny economies.
China's economic might has rolled up to America's doorstep in the Caribbean, with a flurry of loans from state banks, investments by companies and outright gifts from the government in the form of new stadiums, roads, official buildings, ports and resorts in a region where the United States has long been a prime benefactor.
