American Olympic ski star 'is the son I lost 25 years ago'

Athlete Toby Dawson may be the toddler who went missing in South Korea in 1981. Picture / Reuters

WASHINGTON - The Olympics are many things: a global television festival, a crucible for national pride and the ultimate test of an individual's sporting prowess.

But the Winter Games in Turin have served another extraordinary purpose: possibly re-uniting an American skier with his long-lost birth parents living half a world away.

Last week Toby Dawson, a Korean-American with Elvis-sized sideburns and daredevil skills to match, won the bronze medal in the men's freestyle moguls. His heroics made headlines in the US. In distant Busan, South Korea, they created a sensation.

After watching the event, friends and relatives of Kim Jae-su called him to say that Dawson looked exactly like the son Kim had lost in 1981, when the 2-year-old boy became separated from his mother in the town's market. His father never set eyes on him again. Until, perhaps, now.

"I looked at the pictures in the papers and confirmed it myself," the 52-year-old told the Chosun Ilbo newspaper.

"There is no doubt this is the son I lost 25 years ago."

And the circumstantial evidence cannot lightly be set aside.

For one thing, the toddler who became Toby Dawson was found near the same marketplace. The person who found him left him outside a police station.

After his parents could not be found, he was placed in an orphanage, where he was adopted by Americans Mike and Deborah Dawson, ski instructors at the US winter sports mecca of Vail, Colorado.

Kim and his wife, meanwhile, had searched everywhere for their tiny son. "I didn't think reporting it to the police would be of any help, so I went around looking for him myself," Kim said.

The couple combed the orphanages and markets of Busan, but progress was slow. They could only do their searching on days off from work.

Of very modest means, they had to get around on foot or by bus. By the time they had covered every possibility, the boy was 12,000km away at a new home in the US.

Toby did what almost everyone else did in his new home town in the Rockies: he learned to ski.

Disoriented and traumatised when he arrived in the US, the boy used skiing as a means of expressing himself.

"I was definitely more aggressive in that area of my life because I was so shy otherwise," Dawson told NBC last week, explaining how he was drawn to moguls - where self-confidence is not an option, but essential to perform at all.

By 2004 he had made his breakthrough, winning three World Cup events. For fans he was simply "Awesome Dawson".

But all the while, curiosity about his roots grew. He posted photos of himself as a little child on his website, in the hope that his real parents might identify themselves.

"I've been struggling with this a lot," Dawson said last week.

"Many people have been asking me about this. I have had people claim they are my biological parents; I've had random calls. So I'll take this process very slowly - we'll see."

Back in Busan, Kim said he could hardly wait to see the ski star he insists is his son.

He says he is willing to undergo a DNA test to prove his paternity. If that proves positive, then his own and Toby Dawson's long search will be over.

- INDEPENDENT