He won the bronze medal at the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo over 1500 metres. He also won a silver medal at the 1989 World Indoor Championships and a gold medal at the 1987 Summer Universiade. Fuhlbrügge qualified for the Olympic Games in Barcelona 1992 but went out in the semi-finals. He set personal bests of 1:45.15 minutes for 800 metres in 1989 and 3:34.15 minutes for 1500 metres in 1991. The latter result places him tenth on the German all-time performers list, behind Thomas Wessinghage, Harald Hudak, Jens-Peter Herold, Dieter Baumann, Rüdiger Stenzel, Jürgen Straub, Willi Wülbeck and Andreas Busse.