Toby Dawson Is a Olympic Athlete and a Famous Adoptee

Abandoned on the steps of a police station in Seoul or in the street, details are scarce; the orphanage workers guessed at Toby Dawson's age and listed his birthday as November 30, 1978, and named him Kim Soo Chul. Adopted by two Vail, Colorado ski instructors, Mike and Deborah Dawson, Toby was adopted at the age of 3. Struggling with a new culture and language, Toby screamed in his sleep every night for almost a year. K.C., Toby's brother was adopted from South Korea about a year after Toby.

On February 27, 2007 DNA testing confirmed that a bus driver in Busan, South Korea was Dawson's birth father.

The Torino, Italy games is Dawson's Olympic debut. He took the bronze medal in the men's moguls event.

He retired from skiing in September, 2007. He plans on becoming a professional golfer.

being an individualist in his looks and in the way he skis.

• Nicknamed "Awesome Dawson," Toby likes to tell people that his Korean middle name of Soo Chul is pronounced, "So Cool."
• Original Korean name was Bong-seok.

• Started skiing at the age of 4.
• Volunteers at the Korean Heritage Camp for Adoptive Families. It's the same camp he used to attend when he was a child. The goal of the camp is to help kids who are adopted maintain a sense of their Asian culture.
• Discovered that he also has a younger brother upon his adoption reunion.

• Plans on starting a foundation in his name to help other adoptees and orphans.

Toby posted photos on the Olympic Web site in the hopes of someone recognizing him. He had no idea that hundreds would claim to be his birth family. Discouraged he called off the adoption search until the South Korea Tourism Organization selected Dawson to be their honorary ambassador. Toby agreed to help the group if they helped him in his adoption search for his birth family.

DNA testing confirmed that a Busan city bus driver, Kim Jae-Su, is Toby Dawson's birth father. Toby's birth mother lost the 3-year-old while walking through a busy city market in 1981.

Olympic Medalist Toby Dawson Finds Birth Father.

When asked about the heritage camp, "It's a special experience because it is all adopted kids and everyone forms this close bond with each other that is unexplainable, just because we've all kind of gone through the same situation," he says. "We've all had the heartache, all of the things that are involved with being adopted, for one, and being a minority, for two." (source: nbcoplympics.com)

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