Random 28 y/o German nearly broke 8 in the steeple today!?

I want to be positive, but I feel like this reeks of doping

Germans would never dope.

Via his IG, looks like he trains at altitude.

The following is the only article I can find, and it is from the German's presses' coverage of today's meet. Minimal training insight but interesting nonetheless.

In that case then, he wants to be negative.

Coached by Dieter Baumann’ s wife and coach.

He was an 8:15 steeple guy in 2022 but had stagnated and only ran a slightly faster 8:15 at euro's.

Seems he hasn't improved his flat PR's much. His flat 3k only got 2 seconds faster (7:48 ->46) and his road 5k was 10 seconds faster(13:33->13:22).

Maybe I'm wrong but I expect doping to do more for flat times than the steeple? Lets see if he ever runs close to this again, may be a flash in the pan/best race of his life scenario.

Might just handle the event really, really well, a la Rook type runner

uhhhhh…did he just say “Baumann”? Is Isabelle Baumann any relation to Dieter “brush twice a day” Baumann?

looks like another Rupp

Is Baumann’s steroids in the toothpaste denial believed by Germans generally? Just wondering if it’s viewed as a negative to be associated with him.

18th all time, btw, and equivalent to 3:29/12:49.

Would like to see him take a crack at a flat race after this. Can't imagine he's actually a 7:46/13:21 guy

His time was almost a 15 secs improvement on his previous best.

He's 1.84cm tall, 6ft.1 inch, and looks solid.

In the past, 30 seconds gap between flat 3000 to steeple was considered the norm. Some athletes, John Bicourt, GB, a 8.22 runner in the 70's era, had a 20 seconds gap, attributed to impeccable hurdles technique. Can one assume Ruppert's hurdles technique is quasi perfect and economical?

I'm thinking Ruppert must be capable of running 3:35/3:36 and 7:35/7:39 to achieve 8:01. Otherwise he should be classified as a steeplechase outlier, anomolous (in a positive way).

I can't speak for everyone out there, but at least within the running bubble, being associated with him or his wife isn't a problem. Baumann wrote a book about it back then and and even one of Germany's most prominent doping critics (Werner Franke) publicly considered him innocent. His wife had also stopped coaching professional athletes in or before 2010 and concentrated on her job as a teacher, which she still holds. Only in recent years more and more athletes have joined her group, so that now there is a very strong training group in Tübingen by German standards.

Regarding Ruppert himself: It was somewhat obvious that he would have to be able to run faster than 8:15, since he already won last year's national championships in 8:16 with a final kilometer of 2:34 (7:42 pace). He also ran 8:15 in 2022 with low-mileage training under his old coach. Still, probably no one, including me, would have expected an 8:01. Funnily enough, he has been one of Isabelle Baumann's first athletes to adopt double-threshold training. Isabelle Baumann had resisted it for quite some time, even though she herself had long been a proponent of threshold training I think.

Here in Germany, we're happy that there are some good runners again, although Frederik Ruppert is certainly something special.
About training: As far as I know, he has intensified his training (sessions and volume). Last year, he had one week of 155km; this year, he's planning 12-14 weeks of 155km each. He says that's the big difference. He doesn't see his coach often, except for a days, but is coached remotely.

Since you’re German, maybe you can answer a question: is sports doping a criminal offense in Germany? I heard it was, which would - at least partially - account for the massive drop off in doping since the 80s and 90s. Also, socially it’s not acceptable, unlike - ahummm - some extremely sus East African countries in which you’d basically have to be stupid not to dope (come from poverty with no need to pay back the loads of cheater money when caught; essentially zero/no consequences and no social stigma either).

Doping can be a criminal offense, especially for elite athletes.

Eye-raising result and it’d be interesting to hear why his flat times are so mediocre and why his career to this point is as it is. I tend to think Steeple times are soft. I feel like if you are in 7:35 shape and a great hurdler you can challenge 8 minutes but few guys execute that obviously and the pacing is often all over the place. This guys PB is only 7:46 though he did run this race pretty perfectly as far as measuring his effort. With Amos Serem apparently hurt and Girma still not ready, we need more interesting athletes. Hate to say it, but the Ethiopians like Sime are completely trick-or-treat and most of the time they blow up. Serems younger brother and Simon Koech can maybe get there. Beamish, too.

Sidenote: Apologies if this is wrong but I think Grant Fishers coach Mike Scannell trained under/with Baumann’s wife and cited her as an influence.

East German or West German?

germans today are not on my PED radar

you may assume ALL east germans iron curtain, none were clean what so ever

the east german program was the chinese program, where the chicks knocked it out of the part, with near 8:00 3000m which on the best track with best conditions 7:50

and this would not be speculation of any kind.