O’Brien shines as wildcard
RISING Gold Coast surfer Liam O’Brien has boosted his reputation with a series of quality performances at the World Junior Championship yesterday.
O’Brien only entered the event in Kiama on NSW’s south coast as a wildcard but he yesterday put Mikey McDonagh of Lennox Heads to the sword, winning their third round showdown 11.93 to 9.90.
O’Brien then put in a solid display in Round 4, though his combined two-wave score of 12.63 was not quite enough to book him a place in the quarter-finals.
“This has been an amazing experience for me,” said O’Brien, who had earlier in the competition defeated Tyler Gunter (United States) and Yuri Ogasawara (Japan).
“Winning a few big heats in this format has been great for my confidence and I’ll take that confidence with me to Hawaii next week where I’ll compete in a few QS (qualifying series) and junior events over there.”
Tweed surfer Alyssa Lock could not progress past Round 3 yesterday.
The Tweed talent was unable to manage better than a 2.67 score on any one wave as she fell well short of the totals set by reigning world junior champion Macy Callaghan (13.83) and America’s Kirra Pinkerton (12.40).