3 weeks ago
23
Upgrade to High-Speed Internet for only ₱1499/month!
Enjoy up to 100 Mbps fiber broadband, perfect for browsing, streaming, and gaming.
Visit Suniway.ph to learn
TRIBUTE. The Palarong Pambansa logo features a 'pixelated human figure' inspired by the popular photo of swimming great Teofilo Yldefonso.
Ilocos Norte - Palarong Pambansa 2025 Facebook page
As the 2025 Palarong Pambansa heads to Laoag, Ilocos Norte, the host province pays tribute to the 'Ilocano Shark'
The 2025 Palarong Pambansa celebrates not only the drive for excellence of elementary and high school student-athletes but also the legacy of a Filipino sports great.
Hosted by Laoag, Ilocos Norte, the Palarong Pambansa pays tribute to the first Filipino to win an Olympic medal as this year’s logo includes the silhouette of swimming legend Teofilo Yldefonso, who’s also an Ilocano icon.
The logo features a “pixelated human figure” inspired by the popular photo of Yldefonso showing him standing near a swimming pool, his two hands placed on his hips.
Who is Teofilo Yldefonso?
Born in Piddig, Ilocos Norte, in 1903, Yldefonso laid the foundations of his swimming career at the nearby Guisit River as he taught himself to swim.
According to his profile in the International Swimming Hall of Fame, Yldefonso enlisted in the 57th Infantry Regiment of the Philippine Scouts around 1920 and began joining international meets, including the Far Eastern Games.
Yldefonso won the men’s 200m breaststroke gold in four editions of the Far Eastern Games, reigning supreme in 1923 in Osaka, Japan, 1927 in Shanghai, China, 1930 in Tokyo, Japan, and 1934 in Manila, Philippines.
He made his Olympic debut in the 1928 Amsterdam Games in the Netherlands, donning the national colors together with fellow swimmer Tuburan Tamse, high jumper Simeon Toribio, and sprinter Anselmo Gonzaga.
Competing in his signature 200m breaststroke event, Yldefonso finished behind Japan’s Yoshiyuki Tsuruta (gold) and Germany’s Erich Rademacher (silver) for the bronze, becoming the first Filipino and Southeast Asian to win an Olympic medal.
Yldefonso earned an Olympic spot again in the 1932 Los Angeles Games in the United States, repeating as the 200m breaststroke bronze medalist to earn the distinction as the first Filipino to own multiple Olympic medals.
For nearly 90 years, Yldefonso stood as the only Filipino to win multiple Olympic medals before weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz joined his company when she ended the Philippines’ quest for gold in the 2020 Tokyo Games in Japan to add to the silver she captured in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics in Brazil.
Gymnast Carlos Yulo (two golds) and boxer Nesthy Petecio (one silver, one bronze) have also since followed suit.
Yldefonso, who was called the “Father of the Modern Breaststroke” by European textbooks for transforming the breaststroke style of his time, competed in the Olympics for the final time as he placed seventh in the Berlin Games in Germany in 1936, three years before World War II broke out.
A lieutenant of the Philippine Scouts, Yldefonso fought in the war against the Japanese, and when Bataan fell in April 1942, he was among over 70,000 Filipino and American soldiers who were forced to go through the Death March.
Although Yldefonso survived the hellish march that took the lives of thousands, he died months later at the age of 38 in June 1942 at Camp O’Donnell in Capas, Tarlac.
Journalist and diplomat Felipe Buencamino III, who also fought in Bataan, wrote in his diary that Yldefonso was deprived by the Japanese of medicine to treat his gangrene that developed from a wound and was later buried with other corpses.
His remains never recovered, Yldefonso’s memory lives on in his hometown Piddig, where a historical marker in his honor stands since 2006.
Swimming ran in the blood of the “Ilocano Shark” as one of his six children followed in his footsteps, with his daughter Norma bagging the women’s 100m butterfly silver in the second edition of the Asian Games hosted by the Philippines in 1954.
Yldefonso was posthumously awarded the Presidential Award for Meritorious Service by former President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in 1967 and was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2010, remaining as the only Filipino to achieve the feat.
No swimmer from the Philippines has won an Olympic medal since Yldefonso, but there is hope that the Palarong Pambansa will give birth to the next Filipino swimming champion. – Rappler.com
