2003

The following year, Markus continued to cement his position as one of the sport’s best. Oddly, he had never competed in the Arnold Classic before, and he made his debut there with a powerful third place behind Jay Cutler and Chris Cormier. Ruhl also took second place to a far lighter Darrem Charles at the inaugural (and only, so far) version of the Maximus Pro event in Rome, Italy. While training for the Olympia that August, the specter of injury returned to haunt Markus once more. In the midst of performing a set of barbell bench presses, he tore his triceps and had to visit a surgeon yet another time to have it reattached. He was out of the show. I can say that he did attend, and despite not being able to train properly, Ruhl was so enormous from the back that when I saw him exiting Ruffles Café Thursday night that Olympia weekend, I thought he was the late Trevor Smith, a mountain of a man who tipped the scales at 400 pounds.