DAF announces 2022 Athletes of the Year

JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-LACKLAND, Texas – The Division of the Air Power not too long ago introduced a bodybuilding and health competitor and adaptive athlete in three sports activities because the 2022 Feminine and Male Athlete of the 12 months – Tech. The sergeant. Evon Pennington and Workers Sergeant. Kenneth Guinn, respectively.

“Competitors in particular person and crew sports activities promotes lively, wholesome life and esprit de corps,” stated Randy Behr, chief of the Air Power Companies Middle DAF Health and Sports activities Department.

“DAF’s health and sports activities applications help prepared and resilient Airmen and Guardians, who not solely contribute to mission success, but in addition assist them obtain their private objectives. Our Athletes of the 12 months 2022 excelled in bodybuilding and adaptive sports activities respectively and have raised the bar for excellence of their aggressive fields,” he stated.

Pennington, a public well being specialist within the sixth Operational Medical Readiness Squadron at MacDill AFB, Florida, is fueled by motivation, stated Colonel Alvi Azad, his commanding officer.

“She is a licensed wellness teacher specializing in diet, power coaching and cardiovascular endurance coaching and evokes different Airmen of their health all through the Air Power,” Azad stated.

As an Air Power doctor, Pennington stated health is essential to her.

“Health helps with stress administration, encourages more healthy consuming habits, builds muscle and power, improves temper and discourages unhealthy way of life decisions,” Pennington stated.

“Being a doctor generally requires working lengthy hours and responding on off days, so it may be difficult to develop and cling to a health routine when your schedule is unpredictable,” she stated. “Health has been part of my life for eight to 9 years as a result of I work out within the morning earlier than I report back to work.”

Through the awards interval, Pennington received the Ladies’s Physique Bodybuilding competitors and was topped the ‘Legion’s Sport Pageant’ champion. She additionally certified as a 2022 Olympian and competed within the televised world championships in December rating twelfth on this planet for girls’s physique.

Upon his set up, he developed a weight reduction program for 2 airmen, saving their careers as they upped their bodily health check by greater than 15 factors and misplaced greater than 80 kilos. She additionally supplied 75 health seminars to assist greater than 160 Airmen and new nursing mothers who have been fighting weight reduction.

Whereas at Petty Officer Academy, he led 76 of his colleagues in classroom initiatives, bodily health and digital studying, and piloted a humane efficiency program, making certain correct security, kind and method, in accordance with his award nomination.

His efforts on the NCOA earned his class the “Match Flight” achievement and the John L. Levitow Award for Excellent Graduate.

“After I came upon I had been nominated for this award, I used to be honored past phrases. Bodybuilding is an artwork and has a magnificence that’s not all the time understood by many. When it was introduced that I had received I felt seen, appreciated and understood by everybody concerned,” he stated.

As this 12 months’s Feminine Athlete of the 12 months, Pennington stated she hopes to proceed to encourage and educate different Airmen about reasonably priced and real looking methods to enhance themselves by means of more healthy consuming and actions to assist them enhance bodily and emotionally. .

“My resilience is excessive as a result of my health exercise drives my vitality, power, temper and responsiveness after I’m on obligation. As a health mentor, I take pleasure in educating others more healthy health and diet habits that they’ll use in their very own health journey,” she stated.

Pennington, who was beforehand chosen because the 2022 Air Mobility Command’s Feminine Athlete of the 12 months, thanked her public well being crew and MacDill leaders.

“With out setting real looking objectives, engaged on time administration, and inspiring progress, it would not be unattainable for me to have come this far in bodybuilding within the army. Something is feasible when you will have an excellent help system,” she stated.

Guinn is the thirtieth Chief of Flight High quality Assurance Part for Explosive Ordnance Disposal at Vandenberg Area Power Base, California.

He represented the Air Power and Group USA at quite a few nationwide and worldwide occasions in 2022, competing on three adaptive sports activities groups for the Air Power Wounded Warrior program: wheelchair rugby, wheelchair basketball, and seated volleyball.

“He was chosen to be the Air Power crew captain basic for the 2022 Air Power Wounded Warrior Program for the Adaptive Sports activities Season,” stated Lt. Col. Nicholas Van Elsacker, Guinn’s commander on the thirtieth civil engineer squadron. “He’s additionally an lively mentor and coach for this system the place he turns newly wounded, unwell or injured members into athletes and was hand chosen to assist mentor the newly fashioned wheelchair basketball crew of the Ukrainian Military.

“His fight accidents, restoration and athletic achievements even garnered the eye of ESPN and he was featured in a video article that was seen around the globe,” added Van Elsacker.

“From an early age, I’ve all the time been enthusiastic about sports activities and health, however as soon as I joined the EOD group, I realized that health may actually imply the distinction between life and dying,” Guinn stated. “All through all of my fight deployments, health has been a driving think about our success and skill to assist others with out being a legal responsibility on the battlefield.”

Though his job as an EOD technician could be very bodily demanding, Guinn stated, “You do not have to be on the entrance traces to have that mindset. Health performs a key position in our total well-being and solely strengthens the opposite pillars of resilience. Our work within the gun occupation may put any of us in these conditions at any given time, so it is vital to be match and prepared always.

Throughout his premiership interval, he was chosen because the wheelchair rugby crew captain for Group USA on the worldwide Invictus Video games in The Hague, Netherlands. Throughout matches, he performed within the main ball-carrier place and led the match in scoring to assist his crew advance to the gold medal spherical in opposition to the UK. On the finish of the spherical, Group USA received the gold, and Invictus Video games patron Prince Harry known as the competitors “the best match in Invictus historical past,” in accordance with his award nomination.

His Invictus Video games wheelchair basketball crew additionally went undefeated in pool play and received gold because the defending champion. His sitting volleyball crew received a bronze medal. It was the primary time in 4 years that Group USA’s seated volleyball crew had medaled on the video games.

Guinn was additionally certainly one of 4 legacy members on the 40-person roster for the 2022 Division of Protection Warrior Video games, the place he helped his rugby crew advance by means of the match undefeated and win gold in opposition to United States Navy.

Just like the Invictus Video games, its DOD Warrior Video games basketball crew performed for gold in opposition to Military and received to proceed their three-year undefeated streak. After a three-set win in opposition to Ukraine, her volleyball crew additionally took the gold.

This was the primary time in DOD Warrior Video games historical past {that a} crew had victories in all three crew sports activities.

Lastly, Guinn was chosen to play within the North American Wheelchair Basketball Leagues, the place his crew performed in opposition to a number of skilled, membership, and Paralympic groups. They went on to defeat the Division II champions and left as a nationally ranked crew.

When Guinn bought the decision from his commander to congratulate him on profitable athlete of the 12 months, he stated it was very surreal.

“I by no means thought I would be named the very best athlete within the Air Power,” he stated. “As a crew sports activities athlete, we do not win alone, so identical to this award, I did not win it alone. If it wasn’t for them, I by no means would have had the chance to signify the Air Power and Group USA. I take into account this a win for my Air Power, Military, Navy and Marine Corps teammates that I’ve performed with for years and I sincerely want I may share it with them as effectively.

The employees sergeant additionally expressed his due to “members of the flight for choosing up the caseload whereas I used to be away for coaching and competitions, and my management for permitting me to signify the DAF and the DOD.

“I might additionally like to present particular due to my brothers, the Sinister Six, who took me beneath their wing within the Air Power’s Wounded Warrior program years in the past and mentored me. If it weren’t for them, I would not be the participant, teammate and buddy I’m in the present day” Guinn stated.