Oliver Lang

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Oliver "Ollie" Lang is a professional paintball player. He started playing when he was about 10 years old when he went to a birthday party. From then on he was addicted to the game. When he was a teenager, he and some friends formed Team Ironkids. The Ironkids were made up of Ryan Greenspan, Todd Martinez, Alex Fraige, Davey Williamson, Oliver Lang, Yosh Rau and Eric Roberts.


Contents

[edit] Professional Paintball Teams

[edit] The Ironmen

In 2000, at age 17, Lang joined the Ironmen at the NPPL tournament in Chicago, which was the third event in the series, and, at the time, played in the 10-man format. He was offered the chance to play because various core Ironmen players couldn't attend the tournament. He already knew most of the players on the team as Davey Williamson had already played with him on the Iron Kids, and since he used to train at the same field as them. That year, the Ironmen accomplished a milestone that never had been witnessed before: they won both the World Cup and the NPPL Series title, the first time any team had swept both of paintball’s top honors in one year.

2001 was a tougher year for Lang as team Ironmen went through what turned out to be a bad year: both Marty Bush and Shane Pestana retired, and the results of the team were not nearly as good as what they had been the year before. This was even harder for Lang to accept given that many of Oliver's friends had formed Team Dynasty, whom almost instantly became successful and popular. That year, the Ironmen made the finals in Chicago. Four Ironmen players (Rich Telford, Oliver Lang, Micah McLoughlin and Davey Williamson) also played a number of Millennium Series events (European Paintball Championships) with Swedish team Joy Division, with whom they were quite successful, making the finals at the Seven-Man World Cup in Toulouse, France, and at the English Mayhem Masters. Finally, Oliver Lang was selected that year to play on team Diablo VIP at England's Campaign Cup, also part of the Millennium Series. The team was formed of all-star players on Diablo (former Draxxus) sponsored teams, and included former Ironkid Todd Martinez, Chris Lasoya, Steve Rabakoff (all of them Avalanche superstars), as well as Rich Telford and Oliver Lang (Ironmen), Rob Staudinger (Trauma), and Richmond Italia (Image, Diablo owner). The team won the event by one point ahead of America's Ground Zero thanks to an incredible bunkering move by Todd Martinez who took out the four remaining GZ players and hung the flag a mere seconds before the end of the game, knowing his getting shot would give GZ the win. The team was registered as Team Image to give it the ranking points, as Image was absent from the event and also Diablo's top sponsored team. At the time, player transfers were authorized until the end of the season in the Millennium Series.

[edit] Team Dynasty

In 2002, Lang left the Ironmen and rejoined his childhood friends Alex Fraige, Todd Martinez, Ryan Greenspan, Brian Cole, Brad Maughan, and Angel Fragoza in San Diego Dynasty, which had formed the year before.[1][2] For four years, Dynasty went through a series of wins on both sides of the Atlantic which had never been witnessed before, and has never been observed since. In 2003, Dynasty won every single event in the Millennium Series, as well as every single event in the NPPL. They took second in the PSP's last Pro 10-Man event in Los Angeles behind the Naughty Dogs, and second as well at the Open Division X-Ball World Cup behind Team Strange. In 2004, Team Dynasty only won two NPPL events, and its winning streak in Europe was stopped at the Iberian Cup in Madrid by Team Arsenal, who won in two straight games in the finals, thereby putting an end to an incredible 13 victories in a row series. Dynasty still won both the NPPL series, the PSP overall open X-ball competition, and the Millennium 7-Man series.

2005 was Oliver Lang's and Dynasty's most successful year, with four out of five wins in the NPPL.

[edit] Los Angeles Ironmen 2006

Lang left Dynasty and rejoined the Ironmen in 2006, making paintball history when he was paid $100,000 to do so.[2]

He now works at Dye Precision, and endorses their products. He is also guesting for Budapest Bullets in the Millennium Series. In 2007 he led the Ironmen to their first ever NXL championship beating Russian Legion at World Cup and beating Dynasty out for the series championship at the same time by a tiebreaker.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Shafer, Jacob: Paintball Player Oliver Lang, Retrieved on May 10, 2007
  2. ^ a b Williams, Christian. Oliver Lang goes to Dye & the Ironmen, Retrieved on May 10, 2007

[edit] External links

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