Your prayers must have worked. Olympian and masters hammer champ Tom Gage had heart surgery last June. But he’s already back throwing heavy things attached to wires! A great article, reprinted below, talks of a December outing in Reno. The story reports: “He was originally planning to get back into competition in March for the national indoor masters championship meet, and he decided to attend the competition in Reno on a whim. I said, ‘Damn, am I ready for this?'” he said. “At the last minute, I said, ‘I think I’ll go, too, and see how this goes.’ I thought it was worthwhile taking a shot at it.” For the record, Tom’s marks in Reno are recorded here.  Way to go, Tom!

Here’s the story:

By the Associated Press

BILLINGS — Olympian and Billings resident Tom Gage said it’s pretty rare for him to lose masters-age division hammer-style throwing competitions.

But when he won the Reno Tahoe Athletics Club Throws Explosion competition — beating out 11 other people in the masters division (for ages 30 and up) — on Dec. 6, it came as quite a surprise.

Last June, Gage, 65, had open-heart surgery and could barely walk to the end of his sidewalk, let alone do a lap around the block.

“I didn’t feel like doing much at all for about five or six weeks after” surgery, he said. “And I definitely didn’t expect to win.”

Six months later, he’s snowshoeing, lifting weights and, of course, winning competitions.

In early 2008, doctors in Billings discovered that Gage had an aortic aneurysm — a weakening of the major blood vessel that feeds blood into the body. It started with a routine physical checkup in December 2007.
Gage’s family has a history of heart disease, and he had been monitoring his blood pressure for years when a doctor recommended an echocardiogram, like an ultrasound for the heart.

The results were inconclusive, and Gage was referred to cardiologist. He underwent a CAT scan, which showed the aneurysm. Within 15 minutes of the results, Gage said he had set up an appointment with a cardiac surgeon.

“It’s a complicated procedure,” he said. “It’s not something they do in Billings.”

He headed to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. On June 12, a surgeon replaced a section of his aorta with 4 inches of Dacron tube in a procedure called a valve-sparing aortic root replacement. The tube
essentially interlaces with the arterial muscle tissue and, according to Gage, is just as strong as if the surgery hadn’t been done at all.

In fact, the procedure was chosen in part because of Gage’s active lifestyle. He competed in the hammer throw in the 1972 Summer Olympics
in Munich, Germany, placing 12th, has been a track and field athlete since the 1960s and continues to live an active lifestyle, lifting weights, biking, snowshoeing and attending competitions around the country.

“One of the keys was the question of the after-effects,” he said.

Gage’s rehabilitation after surgery has been what he calls “astounding,” not because of how far he has come, but how fast he has done it. After surgery, he started easy, taking short walks and eventually getting to the point where he could go three miles a day.

Six months later, his regimen includes two days of weightlifting, in accordance with doctor-mandated limits, and two days of activities like
walking, biking, in-line skating or snowshoeing. He hopes to be back at about 95 to 97 percent of his pre-surgery strength by late spring.

“You don’t really bounce back,” Gage said. “At this age, you’re fighting decline. The best I can hope for is to reduce it.”

He
was originally planning to get back into competition in March for the national indoor master’s championship meet, and he decided to attend the competition in Reno on a whim.

“I said, ‘Damn, am I ready for this?'” he said. “At the last minute, I said, ‘I think I’ll go, too, and see how this goes.’ I thought it was worthwhile taking a shot at it.”

Gage went to the competition expecting to finish in the middle of the pack. At the end of the day, a friend told Gage of being beaten out by a few points. When Gage asked who the overall winner was, the friend replied, “You.”

When recent snowfall in the Billings area melts, Gage plans to clear off the field at MetraPark to resume his hammer throwing practice. He said
he’ll probably go to the indoor championship in March, along with the outdoor master’s competition later this summer, but he really does it because he just loves to throw things, healthy or not.

“Throwing things is just fun,” he said with a grin. “Our motto basically is if we can pick it up, we’re going to try to throw it.”