The Tokyo Olympics start Friday. Big mistake. The IOCC already postponed the Games once from last year. They couldn't wait another year to stage a safer, more vaccinated Olympics with more fans and less COVID fear?

Tokyo is one of the world's largest, most educated cities, with a population of about 38 million people. Japan is a highly developed first world country with 126 million people. The vaccination rate in Japan is 21.6 percent, less than half the rate in the U.S., and COVID is rebounding big time here. Tokyo is in an official COVID state of emergency, with cases rising every day in the past month.

The most alarming statistic is this: a recent poll has 83 percent of Japanese not wanting the Games to be held. That's up 14 percent from three months ago. They really don't think hosting the Olympics during a health emergency is a good idea.

Some athletes, like rising American tennis star Coco Gauff, aren't attending the Olympics because they've tested positive for COVID at home. Some already have tested positive after arriving at the Olympic Village in Tokyo, where 4,000 athletes from around the world will live in close quarters. The Olympics could turn into a super spreader event. A public health official in Tokyo was on CNN this week urging organizers to call off the Olympics. The Olympic Village bubble already has sprung a leak, he said.

The world couldn't wait another 12 months to watch canoe slalom races? Bruce Springsteen's daughter in horse jumping? Artistic swimming? Three-on-three basketball shouldn't be an Olympic event. Three on three is when the other guys don't show up at the playground.

There was a rumor that Olympic organizers ordered fragile cardboard beds that would support the weight of only one person – to discourage sex among the athletes. First, how out of touch are the organizers if they think fit, world class athletes in their 20s need a bed?

Besides the rumor wasn't true. The beds are sturdy and recyclable.

It will look weird when athletes stand on the medal platform and put sanitized medals around their own necks by themselves. While wearing gloves. So stupid.

There won't be fans in the stands, but there will be fat cat sponsors, thousands of media and 11,000 athletes. You want to make money? Invest in cotton swabs. Everybody will be tested regularly.

Here's how to make the Olympics safer and nobody gets sick. Just give Simone Biles the gold medal in gymnastics and Novak Djokovic the gold in tennis and say good night. I am interested in the basketball competition because the U.S. men will be challenged for a change, and the U.S. women are fun to watch.

Tennis won't have Roger Federer (injury) or Rafael Nadal (rest). The top U.S. woman, No. 4-ranked Sofia Kenin, and the GOAT Serena Williams aren't playing.

Only six teams made the baseball competition and I'm rooting for Israel because I know one of the players who helped the Jewish State qualify. Jeremy Wolf was part of the 2016 Trinity national D3 champions.

Major Japanese corporations and Olympics sponsors announced this week that they won't be sending executives to the opening ceremony. Sponsors include the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., Fujitsu and NEC Corp. No word from the Japanese TV network that airs the Super Terrific Happy Hour.