AEDC's Capt. John Dayton brings home first place in Air Force swimming event

  • Published
  • By Patrick Ary
  • AEDC.PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. --  Most swimming pools are just starting to fill up for the summer, but one AEDC Airman has already spent plenty of time in the water.

Capt. John Dayton, Assistant Operations Officer in AEDC's Turbine Engine Ground Test Complex, competed April 19 in the Headquarters Allied Air Command Ramstein Swimming Championships in Zakopane, Poland. He was part of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe men's freestyle relay team and also came back to AEDC with a first-place win in the 100-meter breaststroke, his strongest event.

Dayton, who has been swimming competitively since high school and was on the swim team at the Air Force Academy, also served as coach and captain of this year's team.

"Basically, it's a little more organizational work beforehand - helping get things together, helping answer people's questions and then also coming up with the lineup for the event and making sure we have people to swim each event and making sure they're in what's appropriate for them," Dayton said.

This is the sixth time Dayton has competed with the Air Force's swim team in the competition. The Air Force team competed with other NATO teams from Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Belgium. He has visited most of those same countries for past competitions.

"I love exploring, traveling and seeing new places," he said. "Each time you see someplace new. That is great to me."

The Air Force team is not a standing team, so Dayton and other members of the team apply to swim for the team each year. Many of the teams they compete against are the same way, meaning team members get to meet other hardworking airmen from other countries. The event is designed as a "diplomacy through sports mission," Dayton said.

"One of the guys that races me, and has raced me for the last couple of years in the 100 breaststroke, is a German," he said. "Because we know each other and we've been there for two or three years, that helps me introduce new members of my team to him, new members of his team to me, and that helps build that relationship. It's the same thing across all of the teams. Normally every year one or two friendly faces from the past really make the camaraderie happen and introduce people all around."

Dayton graduated from the Air Force Academy in 2003. He arrived at AEDC in January from Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, and is now less than two hours from home. He grew up in Hendersonville and swam competitively at Hendersonville High School, as well as for Excel Aquatics. He said it's good to be home after living far away for several years.

"It's good to be where I can visit with family and friends without as much of a travel burden," Dayton said. "I have a younger brother and sister who are finishing up college over the next couple of years, so it's good to be back and near them while they're doing that."

Since he left the Air Force Academy, Dayton said he has shifted his exercise regimen away from exclusively swimming and more toward triathlon training. He focuses more on swimming leading up to the competitions. But despite broadening his workouts, Dayton said he still loves swimming because of its mix of team camaraderie and individual competition, and he will continue to compete as long as he can.

"I enjoy the competitive aspects of it from an individual swimming sport, but the best friends of my life have all been swimmers who slugged through the practices with me and then through the competitions," Dayton said.