Liam O’Brien wishes he could have this one back. Photo: WSL//screenshot
Liam O’Brien was eliminated from the El Salvador Pro on Monday due to confusion about who had priority.
In the first heat of men’s round three, Callum Robson took off at the top of the point on a wave that was easily double overhead. As Robson did a bottom turn and carved on the top of the wave, Liam O’Brien dropped in behind him. Robson kicked out of the wave as O’Brien did two maneuvers before it closed out.
It appeared that O’Brien thought he had priority. Robson raised his hands towards the shore, pleading for clarification.
The wave happened during a commercial break, so the viewers and announcers were in the dark for several minutes as to what had happened. O’Brien had dropped in with such confidence that the announcing team thought the interference may have been on Robson.
More than four minutes elapsed after the commercial break until an interference mark appeared on the screen; it was actually on O’Brien.
It’s unclear what took the judges so long to make the call, because if they knew Robson had priority the whole time, the decision was cut and dry. The WSL VP of Tours and Competition, Renato Hickel, explained the situation on Instagram, saying that Robson clearly had established priority and O’Brien was mistaken in thinking otherwise.
O’Brien was penalized by losing his second score. Given that Robson had already garnered 12.50 points in the heat, there was no way O’Brien could win. They surfed the last half of the heat already knowing that the result was sealed.
We reached out to O’Brien to hear his side of the story, but have yet to receive a response.
Interferences have proven costly on several occasions in the early part of the 2026 Championship Tour. Jack Robinson was eliminated at Bells Beach on a controversial interference call. Another non-interference call resulted in a heated exchange between Yago Dora and Jacob Willcox at Margaret River.
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