Teófilo Yldefonso

Also known as: The Ilocano Shark · Teofilo Yldefonso (accentless styling) · The Father of the Modern Breaststroke · The Yldefonso stroke (the flat breaststroke style named for him)

The Ilocano Shark, the wife's-citizenship ruling, the Amoy patriarch, and the Capas memorial

Definition

Teófilo Yldefonso (November 5, 1903, Sitio Bayog, Piddig, Ilocos Norte – June 19, 1942, Camp O’Donnell, Capas, Tarlac), nicknamed the “Ilocano Shark,” was a Filipino swimmer and soldier: the first Filipino to win an Olympic medal, taking bronze in the 200-metre breaststroke at the Amsterdam 1928 Games on August 8, 1928, and repeating the bronze in the same event at Los Angeles 1932 — feats that make him the first Filipino multiple Olympic medalist. (Wikipedia — Teófilo Yldefonso, GMA News — First Olympic medal) He also placed seventh at Berlin 1936, and died in Japanese captivity at Camp O’Donnell in June 1942 after surviving the Bataan Death March, his remains never recovered. (Wikipedia — Teófilo Yldefonso, Olympedia — Yldefonso)

Between his Olympic podiums Yldefonso dominated Asian swimming — four consecutive 200-metre breaststroke golds at the Far Eastern Championship Games (1923 Osaka, 1927 Shanghai, 1930 Tokyo, 1934 Manila) against Japanese rivals such as Yoshiyuki Tsuruta — and swam his stroke so flat and efficient that European textbooks credited him as “the Father of the Modern Breaststroke.” (Wikipedia — Teófilo Yldefonso, International Swimming Hall of Fame) He served most of his adult life as a Philippine Scouts soldier of the United States Army’s 57th Infantry Regiment and was posthumously honored abroad and at home, including induction as an Honor Pioneer Swimmer by the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2010. (Olympedia — Yldefonso, International Swimming Hall of Fame)

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	Teófilo Yldefonso
Wikidata	Teófilo Yldefonso (Q2313313)
DBpedia	N/A — DBpedia unreachable this session
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	N/A
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	N/A
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A
Google Scholar	Teófilo Yldefonso Ilocano Shark 200 m breaststroke Amsterdam 1928 Los Angeles 1932 Far Eastern Championship Games Philippine Scouts Camp O’Donnell
ConceptNet	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

The Ilocano Shark
Teofilo Yldefonso (accentless styling)
The Father of the Modern Breaststroke
The Yldefonso stroke (the flat breaststroke style named for him)

Examples and Analogies

The pioneer’s podium: Amsterdam 1928 was the Philippines’ first Olympic medal of any color — Yldefonso’s 2:56.40 behind Tsuruta’s Olympic-record gold and Rademacher’s silver — the way a country’s Olympic history is often dated from a single swimmer’s third place. (GMA News — First Olympic medal)
A dynasty of one: his repeat bronze in 1932 made him the Philippines’ only repeat Olympic medalist for nearly nine decades, until weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz added a Tokyo 2020 gold to her Rio 2016 silver. (GMA News — First Olympic medal, Wikipedia — Hidilyn Diaz)
The soldier-athlete: the Ilocano farm boy who enlisted in the 57th Infantry (Philippine Scouts) around 1922, rose to sergeant and was a lieutenant in the Bataan fighting — the career pattern of Philippine sports before professionalization, when national athletes were often Army men. (Wikipedia — Teófilo Yldefonso, Olympedia — Yldefonso)
The stroke that carried his name: by swimming the breaststroke pull closer to the surface, Yldefonso effectively modernized the event — a technique change attributed to him in European coaching literature as the “Yldefonso” style. (International Swimming Hall of Fame)

Usage Scenarios

1. Studying Philippine Olympic History

Yldefonso anchors the national Olympic record: the first medal (1928), the first multi-medalist (1928 and 1932), a 1936 final appearance, and a family line continued by his daughter Norma’s 1954 Asian Games butterfly silver. (Wikipedia — Teófilo Yldefonso)

2. Tracing Breaststroke Technique

Histories of the stroke cite Yldefonso for bringing the underwater pull to the surface — the reason ISHOF inducted him in 2010 as an Honor Pioneer Swimmer. (International Swimming Hall of Fame)

3. Researching the Bataan Captivity Record

Yldefonso is the named individual most often attached to Camp O’Donnell’s dead — a Manila American Cemetery Walls of the Missing entry, a mass grave, and a death date of June 19, 1942 — and this wiki’s Camp O’Donnell entry carries him accordingly. (Wikipedia — Teófilo Yldefonso)

4. Commemoration and Local Memory

Piddig unveiled a monument to him in 2006, and his silhouette appears in later national sporting imagery — the hometown and state channels through which the memory of a prewar athlete is kept alive. (Wikipedia — Teófilo Yldefonso, International Swimming Hall of Fame)

Strategies

Verify the medal claims by database, not by tradition: Olympedia and the International Olympic Committee profile carry the 1928 and 1932 bronzes and the 1936 seventh place, the fixed points from which all popular retellings should be checked. (Olympedia — Yldefonso)
Date the Far Eastern Games run precisely: four golds at four consecutive editions — 1923, 1927, 1930, 1934 — is the verifiable core of the “unbeaten” legend; broader claims of an unbroken unbeaten career should be reduced to this documented sequence. (Wikipedia — Teófilo Yldefonso)
Keep the two careers together: the swimming and the soldiering are one story — enlistment around 1922, sergeant, lieutenant in Bataan — because the Army was the institution that made his sport and his death possible. (Wikipedia — Teófilo Yldefonso, Olympedia — Yldefonso)
Cite the honors with their years: the ISHOF induction is 2010; the Piddig monument 2006; attaching years prevents the common drift by which all posthumous honors blur into one undated canon. (International Swimming Hall of Fame, Wikipedia — Teófilo Yldefonso)

Security and Safety Measures

The record of an unrecovered dead man: Yldefonso was buried in a mass grave at Camp O’Donnell and his remains were never returned; the Manila American Cemetery’s Walls of the Missing is the official memorial record, and claims of recovered remains should be treated as false. (Wikipedia — Teófilo Yldefonso)
Custody of the name: the family’s own commemorative record — his brother Teodoro at his death, his daughter Norma’s later athletic career — is the biographical anchor that separates documented memory from hagiography. (International Swimming Hall of Fame, Wikipedia — Teófilo Yldefonso)
For researchers: the ISHOF account carries a death-age of 39 and birth year of 1902, while the standard biographical record carries November 5, 1903 and age 38 at death — a discrepancy to be flagged, not silently harmonized. (International Swimming Hall of Fame, Wikipedia — Teófilo Yldefonso)

Historical Context

Yldefonso was born in 1903 in Piddig, Ilocos Norte, and enlisted in the 57th Infantry Regiment of the Philippine Scouts around 1922, the US Army unit in which he served for the next two decades. (Wikipedia — Teófilo Yldefonso, Olympedia — Yldefonso) His international career ran from the 1923 Osaka Far Eastern Games through the 1934 Manila edition — four consecutive breaststroke golds — and three Olympics: bronze at Amsterdam on August 8, 1928 (2:56.40), bronze again at Los Angeles in 1932, and seventh at Berlin in 1936. (GMA News — First Olympic medal, Wikipedia — Teófilo Yldefonso)

The war ended the career and the man. As a lieutenant in the Bataan campaign, Yldefonso survived the Death March to Camp O’Donnell and died there on June 19, 1942 — by the ISHOF account in the arms of his brother Teodoro, after reportedly refusing release from the camp sought by his old rival Tsuruta, by then a Japanese army officer. (International Swimming Hall of Fame) The posthumous canon followed: a Presidential award in the Marcos years, the 2006 Piddig monument, listing in the Philippine Sports Hall of Fame record, and the 2010 ISHOF induction as Honor Pioneer Swimmer. (Wikipedia — Teófilo Yldefonso, International Swimming Hall of Fame)

Challenges and Controversies

The Birth-Year Record

The standard account gives November 5, 1903 and death aged 38; Olympedia and ISHOF materials carry a 1902 birth year and age 39 at death. The disagreement is small but unresolved, and citations should name which source they follow. (Wikipedia — Teófilo Yldefonso, Olympedia — Yldefonso, International Swimming Hall of Fame)

The “Only Two-Time Medalist” Claim

For decades Yldefonso was correctly described as the Philippines’ only multi-Olympic-medalist; since Hidilyn Diaz’s 2016 silver and 2020 gold, the absolute claim is outdated, though he remains the only Filipino to medal twice in the same event and the only one with back-to-back bronzes of the prewar era. (GMA News — First Olympic medal, Wikipedia — Hidilyn Diaz)

Enlistment and Rank Details

The record varies on his enlistment year (1922 in the standard account; “around 1920” in Olympedia) and carries both a final sergeantcy and a wartime lieutenant’s commission — details that should be quoted with their sources rather than merged. (Wikipedia — Teófilo Yldefonso, Olympedia — Yldefonso)

Death Scene Evidence

The circumstantial details of his death — the brother’s presence, Tsuruta’s intervention, the refusal to leave his men — rest on survivor and commemorative accounts rather than camp records, which did not survive; they belong to the memorial literature and should be cited as such. (International Swimming Hall of Fame)