Without A State Championship Meet For Two Years, Korbmacher Has Been Sustained By Ready-Set-Go Sprinters Club And Become An Elite Hurdler in Washington

Story and Photos by Keenan Gray for DyeStat

Bright pink hair was one way to notice Andre Korbmacher at the Spokane High School Invitational on Jan. 16 at The Podium in Spokane. 

But when the 60-meter hurdles final went off, he was easy to spot for another reason. 

His speed and efficiency over the hurdles separated him from the pack and he won by nearly two-tenths of a second in 7.92. 

“My goal for this meet was to go sub-8,” Korbmacher said. “I came in first at 7.92, and I was really proud of myself. To race in a new meet and a new facility (was great). I’m excited to race there more in the future.”

Korbmacher's emergence as an elite hurdler this winter has come after nearly two years of lost opportunities to shine on a state championship stage in Washington due to the global pandemic.

Growing up in Bellingham, Wash., Korbmacher began his track career as a sixth grader at Whatcom Middle School. He initially started running short sprints and then dabbled in some jumping events. After middle school, Korbmacher joined a local sprint and hurdle club in Bellingham – Ready-Set-Go Sprinters Club.

Founded by two former Canadian national team athletes, the married couple Laurent and Dena Birade, Ready-Set-Go was formed after they finished their tenure coaching sprints and hurdles at Bellingham High School. They started the club with an eye on training their son, Carter, a junior hurdler at Sehome High, and other driven student-athletes in Whatcom County.

“My wife and I founded RSG so we could provide an environment for our son to train with others,” said Laurent Birade, who was a top-five 400-meter hurdlers in Canada for eight years. “My wife is the sprints guru, but she also handles the planning for practices and organizing meets. I come in with the technical expertise for hurdles.”

When Korbmacher initially joined RSG, he began with the sprinters. But it wasn’t long until he switched to hurdles.

“It was Dena who realized I was brave enough to attack the hurdles,” Korbmacher said. “I tried it out and really enjoyed it. It was more of a challenging thing for me, which I thought was fun, and so I just stuck with it.”

Korbmacher got his first opportunity to show what he was made in a pair of USATF Junior Olympic meets in 2019 at Mt. Tahoma High in Tacoma, with encouraging results each time.

“He was just a kid who wanted to learn,” Birade said. “He already had some natural ability in terms of being able to do back flips. In hurdling you want somebody to have a gymnastics background or something like that. Then it was just a matter of time and repetition to get that energy put in the right context for him to be successful.”

The 2020 outdoor season would have been Korbmacher’s first chance to compete for Squalicum High, but all sports were canceled in Washington state that spring due to the outbreak of COVID-19. He continued to train when he could with the club, without racing opportunities.

Birade saw it as an opportunity to get better for the following season.

“We still trained and had mock meets,” he said. “All these kids that have the opportunity to work all year-round, their progress is much more phenomenal. So they just need the opportunity to do it. If RSG wasn’t there, you don’t really have a sprint and hurdle community in Whatcom County.”

Korbmacher benefited from the extra focus on training. 

By the time March of 2021 rolled around and it was the end of indoor season, Korbmacher was in peak shape heading into the AAU Indoor National Championships in Virginia Beach and he made the finals of the 60-meter hurdles and the 200 meters.

“It took me awhile to get good at hurdling,” Korbmacher said. “Last year I saw the biggest improvement in the indoor season when I was at AAU Indoor Nationals, and I came in second. I was surprised to be that high, but I put in the work.”

That was also the start of dying his hair before races.  

“I just like to stand out,” Korbmacher said with a big smile.

“Last year at AAU Indoor nationals, I made a bet with Carter that If made it to finals that I would bleach my hair blonde. I made it to finals, my hair was blonde, and I ran PRs in both events, so now it’s kind of like a superstition that my hair is standing out and I run faster.”

During a limited 2021 high school season, Korbmacher finally got to race for Squalicum. He posted the fastest time in the state among Class 2A schools with 14.22 seconds in the 110-meter hurdles and was fourth-fastest in the 300 hurdles with 40.32. 

“It was a really good experience for me,” Korbmacher said. “The season was cut a little bit short with COVID, and obviously there was no state meet, which I was kind of bummed about.”

Despite no Washington state championship meet, there were opportunities to race for RSG over the summer. One was at The Outdoor Nationals presented by Nike at Hayward Field. The other was a trip down to Houston for the AAU National Junior Olympics.

At Hayward Field, Korbmacher didn’t advance to finals in a stacked 110 hurdles field, but managed to still run a personal-best 14.19 seconds – the third-fastest time in Washington. In Houston, his time wasn’t as fast, but he placed second.

“Going into Junior Olympics finals, I was ranked first and was super excited,” he said. “No matter what I placed in the finals I was going to be happy with it. It was a surreal experience to run at that level against competition like that.”

In some of the strangest times the world has experienced the last two years, Korbmacher had made steady progress. 

Before his victory at The Podium, Korbmacher traveled back to Virginia Beach for the Grant Holloway Holiday Invitational and ran 7.89 seconds in the 60-meter hurdles, breaking Washington's all-time indoor best. The performance is still US#3.

“I’m excited for this year,” Birade said. “We just did our first two indoor meets and were about a half second ahead of where we were last year.”

Korbmacher intends to compete March 11-13 at New Balance Nationals at The Armory in New York City. 

“When we started this, I told him, ‘You are going to run under 14 seconds when you are in high school,’” Birade said. “That’s never been done before (at Squalicum), but I knew he was going to get there if he did the things we asked him to do. I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens this year.”