TOKYO (AP) — It was small news that dropped during a busy sports week in June. A much-hyped track meet in Los Angeles fronted by one of the sport’s greats, Michael Johnson, was being canceled.

It marked the second major event pulled off the 2025 calendar in America’s second-largest population center — a city once known for its glamorous melding of track and fame — and the news came a mere three years before Los Angeles hosts its first Summer Olympics since 1984.

The lead-up to the LA Games was supposed to be a time to return the sport to the glory days that peaked in ‘84, when Carl Lewis, Edwin Moses and the rest of track’s stars ran and jumped in the Coliseum by day, then hit red carpets and sat with Johnny Carson by night.

But in some ways, the sport feels more divided and less organi

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