[4] Wüst spends three months a year in his elected second home, Noosa, Australia, while remaining a resident of his native Cologne.

[3] In mid-1988, Wüst turned professional with the French RMO team, taking part in that year's edition of Paris–Tours, where he won the first intermediate sprint.

The following year, he started the Vuelta a España, but was forced to retire with intestinal problems after having held the point leader's jersey for a while.

He was set to compete in the 1999 Tour de France, but a broken collarbone in a pre-Tour criterium race ruled him out.

[4] Even with his frequent victories, Wüst remained largely anonymous in his native Germany because he was riding for foreign squads as opposed to the popular Team Telekom.

[3] His team honoured his existing contract into 2001,[9] but with his vision severely impaired, Wüst decided to retire from professional cycling.

[3] Following the Festina affair, which uncovered widespread use of doping on his team, Wüst was rumoured to have been using performance-enhancing drugs as well.

[10] However, when Willy Voet, the team's soigneur, released a book about the affair in 1999, printed diary entries suggested that Wüst had injected erythropoietin (EPO) six times in January and February 1997.

In this position, he was fired by ARD in 2007, after the broadcaster decided not to use former cyclists in their coverage in the wake of doping revelations at the Telekom team.

[13] On 1 April 2017, Wüst was elected into the office of vice-president, responsible for marketing and communication, of the Bund Deutscher Radfahrer, the German cycling federation.