Regino Ylanan

Regino Ylanan was born in Bogo, Cebu on September 7, 1889. He attended at Cebu High School and played baseball for the institution as a catcher. He continued to play the sport while studying to be a doctor at the University of the Philippines College of Medicine. Reaching his twenties, he enjoyed his first experience of high level sport in 1911 when he was named in the all-Filipino national baseball team as a center fielder. Despite his early baseball success, it was in track and field that Ylanan made his impact as an athlete. He graduated as a doctor of medicine from University of the Philippines in 1918. He practiced as a surgeon at the Philippine General Hospital. ==Career==

Competitive career Ylanan was selected to represent the Philippines at the inaugural Far Eastern Championship Games in 1913 in the athletics competition. At the event in Manila, his throwing abilities from playing baseball translated into success in the shot put and the discus throw, events which he won with marks of and , respectively. He won a third athletics gold medal in the pentathlon, making him the top performing athlete at the competition and a key figure in securing the athletics title for the Philippines. Still a student, he returned for the 1915 Games held in Shanghai and defended his shot put title with an improved throw of . Although he didn't match the success of his first appearance, he did reach the podium for a second time in the form of a pentathlon bronze medal. The Philippines won the championship title for second time, although it was Genaro Saavedra that led the charge this time as he took four gold medals in total. Ylanan competed one further time at the competition, playing as catcher for the Filipino baseball team at the 1917 Far Eastern Championship Games. As coach and support staff He served as the head coach for the Filipino baseball team at the 1921 and 1923 Far Eastern Championship Games; the team won the title in both years. Western sports were becoming increasingly popular during the period of American influence and the American-educated Ylanan fostered the development of such sports. In 1924 he coached David Nepomuceno, a sprinter who, at the 1924 Paris Olympics, became the first ever Filipino Olympian as the country sent a two-man delegation comprising Ylanan as the sole official and Nepomuceno as the sole athlete. He was the chief medic for the 1928 Olympic Philippines team and then the head of the national delegation at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where Miguel White won the country's second ever Olympic athletics medal in the hurdles. Sports administration Ylanan helped create the National Collegiate Athletic Association in 1924, representing the University of the Philippines among the seven founding colleges in the national sports league. The league went on to be highly influential in the development of sport in the Philippines. Ylanan headed the Filipino delegation for the 1925 Far Eastern Championship Games in Manila. as well as the development of baseball in the country on which he remarked that it "seemed to fill a long-felt want with the Filipino". ==Death==

Ylanan died sometime in 1963 due to a heart attack while in a process of writing a book. He was given several awards posthumously, including honours from the Philippine Sports Writers Association and a YMCA Triangle Award. In 1999 he was awarded the title of "Sports Leader of the Millenium" by the Philippine Sportswriters Association. ==References==