Paintball League Middle East

Paintball League Middle East (PALM) is a paintball competition organisation whose documented activities include the PALM Iran tournament series. Its published records include competition calendars, divisional rankings, photographs and video coverage.[1][2]

PALM and the Paintball Asia League Series (PALS) are separate organisations. PALM's Iranian events have included electronic and mechanical marker divisions.[3]

Organisation

PALM's website identifies the organisation as PALM Group and gives a Tehran contact address. Its stated objectives include organising regional tournaments, developing players and referees, supporting paintball academies and assisting local paintball organisations.[1][2]

PALM Iran

The organiser's website preserves PALM Iran calendars for 2016, 2017 and 2018. The 2016 calendar lists events in Tehran and Mazandaran. The 2017 and 2018 calendars each list four rounds in Tehran.[4][5][6]

2016 season

The organiser marked all four rounds of the 2016 PALM Iran season as completed and designated the fourth event “Leg 4 & Championships”.[4]

Round	Location	Documented dates
Round 1	Tehran	Event coverage identifies 3–4 March 2016. The calendar lists 2–4 March.[4][21][22]
Round 2	Mahmudabad, Mazandaran	PALM Media identifies May 2016. The calendar lists 11–13 July. Exact playing dates remain unconfirmed.[4][23][24]
Round 3	Tehran	The calendar lists 27–29 September 2016. A contemporary field-layout post identifies September. Exact playing dates remain unconfirmed.[4][25]
Round 4 and championships	Tehran	Iran Akay advertised 22–23 December 2016. The calendar prints 1–3 February 2016, before the dates listed for the preceding rounds. Actual playing dates remain unconfirmed.[4][26]

Shahab Paintball Park's account identifies a temporary field at the Tehran Javan complex in Tehranpars as the opening-round venue.[22]

A Sorena profile published in December 2020 records Sorena as third overall in PALM 2016. The profile leaves the division unspecified.[15] PALM also published posts labelled as 2016 rankings for Division 2 and Division 3. Their captions identify the season and divisions, with the placings presented separately from the caption text.[27][28]

2017 season

The 2017 PALM Iran season comprised four completed rounds in Tehran. The organiser designated the fourth event “Leg 4 & Championships”.[5]

Round	Organiser's calendar	Announced competition dates
Round 1	9–11 May 2017	Precise playing dates remain unverified
Round 2	12–14 July 2017	13–14 July 2017 [18]
Round 3	6–8 September 2017	7–8 September 2017 [19]
Round 4 and championships	6–8 December 2017	7–8 December 2017 [20]

The announcements for rounds two and three named the Dokouheh Cultural and Sports Complex, also known as Dehkadeh-ye Moqavemat, as the venue.[18][19]

Documented round results

Datis Tehran won Division 1 at each of the first three rounds. Datis Shemiranat won Division 2 at the first two rounds and placed second at the third. Planet Eclipse's 31 July report explicitly identifies the second leg and names both winners.[7][17][29]

Round	Division 1	Division 2	Source
Round 1	Datis Tehran, 1st	Datis Shemiranat, 1st	[17]
Round 2	Datis Tehran, 1st	Datis Shemiranat, 1st	[29]
Round 3	Datis Tehran, 1st	Datis Shemiranat, 2nd	[7]

Documented overall placings

After the third round, Planet Eclipse reported that Datis Tehran led Division 1 and that Datis Shemiranat was close to securing the Division 2 title. The report preceded the final round.[7]

Tehran Paintball's retrospective account of 1396 recorded Tehran as the overall Division 1 runner-up and Sorena as third overall in Division 2. A later Sorena profile also records third overall in PALM 2017.[13][15] The overall champions and full points standings remain unverified.

2018 season

The 2018 PALM Iran season was the third PALM Iran series. The organiser's calendar marks four rounds as completed in Tehran.[6]

Round	Dates	Location
Round 1	10–11 May 2018	Tehran. The announced venue was the Dokouheh Cultural and Sports Complex.[9][10]
Round 2	12–13 July 2018	Dehkadeh Moghavemat, Tehran.[3][11]
Round 3	Calendar lists 29–31 August 2018. Exact playing dates remain unverified.	Tehran, according to the organiser's calendar.[6]
Round 4	22–23 November 2018	Tehran.[12]

The organiser's calendar lists the opening round in March. Its event announcement and video description give 10–11 May. The July and November calendar entries span three days, while the event descriptions identify two playing days.[6][9][10][11][12]

Opening round

PALM Media reported 21 teams across three divisions. Datis Tehran won Division 1, Sorena won Division 2, and the entry listed as Hamed Ashouri finished first in Division 3.[10]

Second round

An association report preserved in the PFA Paintball League channel recorded nineteen teams across three divisions. They represented Tehran, Alborz, Qazvin, Semnan, Mazandaran, Khorasan Razavi, Kerman and Isfahan provinces.[3]

PALM Media's Division 1 final description reported 21 teams. The two reports agree on the dates and the Division 1 podium.[3][11]

Position	Division 1 (electronic)	Division 2 (electronic)	Division 3 (mechanical)
1st	Datis Shemiranat	Spad Hakhamaneshi	Datam
2nd	Tehran	Datam	Shahab One
3rd	Datis	Sorena	Shahab Two

Source for the three podiums: Iran Paintball Association report preserved in the PFA channel.[3]

Third and fourth rounds

A report published by Hamshahri Online on 16 December 2018, citing the Sport for All Federation, published separate classifications for rounds three and four and the national championships. Its third-round section listed Tehran, Datis Shemiranat and Persian Gulf in Division 1, and Sorena, Spad and Datam in Division 2.[14]

PALM Media reported ten teams across two divisions at the fourth round, held on 1–2 Azar 1397 (22–23 November 2018).[12] The federation-attributed report gave the following fourth-round podiums.[14]

Position	Division 1 (electronic)	Division 2 (electronic)
1st	Tehran	Spad
2nd	Sari	Sorena
3rd	Persian Gulf	Ronin

The federation-attributed report described PALM competition and the accompanying national championships as a four-day programme in Tehran.[14]

Overall champions

Tehran Paintball's review of Iranian year 1397 identifies both overall champions. A later Sorena profile also records Sorena's 2018 overall title.[13][15]

Division	Overall champion
Division 1	Tehran
Division 2	Sorena

PALM's November results post distinguished fourth-round placings, national championship results and overall series classifications.[16]

National-team selection

The July 2018 association report stated that PALM and the Iran Paintball Association had agreed to select leading league competitors for a national-team training camp, subject to assessment by the technical commission.[3]

Cancelled programmes

The organiser's events page marks the scheduled PALM Iran rounds for 2020 and 2021 as cancelled because of COVID-19.[8]

Competition formats

The July 2018 results distinguish two electronic marker divisions and a third division using mechanical markers.[3]

The published calendars show a series of rounds culminating in a championship event. The organiser published round placings, national championship results and overall series classifications separately.[5][6][16]

Media

PALM published calendars, rankings, galleries and video material through its website. July 2018 announcements advertised live coverage through the website and Instagram account.[2][3]

Surviving 2016 coverage includes opening-round footage, second-round coverage from Mahmudabad and field-layout posts for the third and fourth rounds.[21][23][25][26] PALM Media's Aparat archive also preserves Division 1 finals from the first, second and fourth rounds of 2018.[10][11][12]

References

External links