Toby Dawson, who won a bronze medal in the Torino Olympics, finally met his real father in Seoul, South Korea yesterday. Unlike most adopted children, however, Dawson wasn't given up by his parents for one reason or another. His mother lost him at a market when he was three.
Dawson was 3 when he was lost in a market by his mother in the southern port city of Busan, Kim said. A truck driver at the time, Kim said it was too late when he got home to start searching for his missing child, whose original Korean name was Bong-seok. Over the next few days, he said he scoured local orphanages but was unable to find his son.
"I went to many orphanage houses only to hear that they didn't have anyone like him. They wouldn't let me come inside and look for him," the 53-year-old Kim said, adding he would search orphanages whenever he had time but eventually gave up.
Many Koreans came forward when Dawson won his medal claiming to be his real parents but the skier waited until test results confirmed that Kim Jae-su was, in fact, his father. A 24-year old brother he never knew he had joined the two men at the press conference but Kim didn't discuss Dawson's biological mother's whereabouts publicly.
It's pretty amazing how genetics work. Both Dawson and his father rock some killer chops. His dad could be an Elvis impersonator, even, and the two brothers sport similar earrings. The sweater his dad's wearing was a gift, however, lest you think Dawson would have ended up on the slopes no matter where he was brought up. Being adopted by ski instructors from Vail had a lot to do with that.
(Photo: Ahn Young-joon, AP)
