R-C Sports Notebook: Olympic overload

I'm a bit of an Olympics addict.

Something about watching a three-minute feel-good feature on an athlete can erase the next three hours of my life as I wait for said athlete's event to begin.

Between the prime time coverage and the live online feeds, I've gotten an extra dose this year and I've come to a couple realizations:

- Team handball is awesome. No, really. I've read plenty about the sport and tried to picture it in my head, but this is the first Olympics where I've ever actually been able to see it (it's being featured mostly online at www.nbc.com). Think basketball and soccer combined with a little bit of volleyball to hold it all together.

- Fencing is really not as spectator-friendly as I once hoped it would be. There is plenty of sword fighting, but the action last only 5 to 10 seconds followed by about a minute-long break between points.

If they really wanted to jazz it up, try setting every competitor loose on the floor for an every-man-for-himself battle royale.

John Williams could score the background music and event planners could recreate sets from The Princess Bride for added effect.

Just an idea.

- While we're at it, why not add a rowing race where each team must navigate a boat with multiple holes in its hull across the lake.

- The great thing about the live online feeds is that each one is presented without commentary. While you are left to figure some of the non-mainstream sports for yourself, you still get to avoid comments like "Well he certainly didn't want to land out of bounds," and "She's going to have to concentrate on swimming straight if she wants to win."

The first high school sports contests are less than three weeks away, although no official rosters for any of the sports have been set.

Football practice starts Thursday and the remaining sports start Monday.

Other than that, that is more or less all that is really going on around here. The first two weeks of August are the traditional dead period in Carson Valley sports every year.

That's why I was so glad to see the volleyball program's mud volleyball tournament fundraiser have such a successful first run over the weekend.

All reports are that it was well-received and well-supported on every front. Organizers have said they hope to grow the event over the next several years, and it could end up growing into an annual festival with a sizeable regional draw.

The R-C Sports Notebook should return in full with its weekly features and recurring items. We've been on skeleton mode all summer while trying to get the kinks of our new Web site ironed out.

Just for future reference, there is an expansive blog section with the new site. You can write blogs from your own user profile or you can post stories and photos to the youth sports blog.

As always, we welcome e-mails, walk-ins and phone calls about story tips, but the blogs are a new outlet you can use to get your news into the paper. Check it out at http://apps.recordcourier.com/utils/blogs/index.php