I have a different answer to the OP if the question is why Rupp slowed down vs. why someone at 68 is slower than at 30. In the case of Rupp, I don't know, but I suspect there were particular individual things in his life that slowed him enough to no longer be top 5. The one thing I do know is that he had surgery for Haglund's deformity (calcium growth on back of heel that tends to cause achilles problems) - that surgery is a big deal and can take months to get back to any running - I remember people on this site ridiculing that Rupp was training with a high school boys team, while I was thinking: "Wow, he's back and that fast already? Amazing!" Presumably there were a bunch of other things like that I don't know about, but even that could be enough to move one from top of the podium to outside the top 5.
Before I address the bigger question, I don't think you should assume things will get worse from early 30s to mid 30s - that seems to be a very individual thing - my 2nd best year of running was when I was 37, and Carlos Lopes won gold medal and set world record marathon between ages 37-38. I will say that people who are at their best running-wise in their early 40s are more outliers and most of the ones I know of were women
As to the bigger question, people have listed many things in their answers (telomeres certainly were not the issue for Rupp!). It could be different for different people. I'm 68 and, before I was hit while walking across the street in a pedestrian cross-walk by an idiot driving an SUV who wasn't looking were he was driving (I'm still working on rehab-ing my completely ruptured hamstring that was repaired via emergency surgery), I was still able to run a straightaway on the track at my old mile race pace (4:38) - I don't seem to have lost significant muscle mass, and I was never very flexible, so I don't think that's a factor. But my max heart rate and hr at first and 2nd threshold are way down. I could not have run nearly as fast as I did when I was 30 if I'd been constrained to these heart rates - and no way that cardiovascularly I could have maintained that 4:38 pace for a mile!
I'd never really understood why everyone's max HR slows down with age even if you train hard until I watched this - and now understand that the gradual slight stiffening of heart tissues prevents heart from beating as fast (it's not like there's some internal clock telling your heart "now, no longer beat as fast" - it's just a mechanical issue).
To the OP: for fun, measure your pace at different heart rates and record it - even at heart rates much lower than you would normally run at now - and this will give you interesting comparison as you age!
(view it in Chrome and choose the english language version - unless you also speak Norwegian!):