DURBAN, South Africa — When Vail kids get their first set of skis, you never know where it'll take them.

Skiing took Vail's Toby Dawson to Durban, South Africa, yesterday as part of South Korea's successful Olympic delegation. The 2018 Winter Olympics will go to Pyeongchang, South Korea, in part, because of Dawson's impassioned plea to the International Olympic Committee.

Dawson was born in South Korea and adopted when he was 3 years old by Mike and Deborah Dawson of Vail. He attended local schools and won a bronze medal in freestyle skiing in the 2006 Winter Olympics.

Dawson was part of Pyeongchang's winning sales pitch that boasted South Korean president Myung Bak Lee and 2010 Olympic figure skating gold medalist Yuma Kim.

But it was Dawson's story that snapped the Olympic movement into personal focus for members of the IOC.

Vail's Toby Dawson Toby Dawson is an American mogul skier who was born in Pusan, South Korea, as Kim Bong-seok. He was adopted and raised in Vail by Mike and Deborah Dawson. He won a bronze medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics.

What's in a name?

“My name is Toby Dawson,” he told the IOC. “My name is also Kim Bong-seok.”

“I am a freestyle skier and I am an Olympian. I am a Korean by birth, yet I am also an American.”

Pyeongchang lost two previous bids to host the 2010 and the 2014 Winter Olympics. The South Korean city beat Munich, Germany, and Annecy, France, to win the 2018 games.

Despite those setbacks, Pyeongchang kept building winter sports facilities and introducing millions of South Korean children to winter athletics of every sort, Dawson told the IOC.

Bringing the Winter Olympics to South Korea would improve the lives of those children, and children for generations to come, Dawson said.

“I want you to give them the same chance I received in America,” Dawson said.

To whom are we listening?

The Olympic mission is to offer hope and understanding through sport, something Dawson reminded the IOC.

“To whom are we listening?” Dawson asked the IOC. “Toby Dawson, the American Olympian, or to Kim Bong-seok, the little Korean boy with the ability to be an Olympian but with limited opportunities to do so?”

“To be honest, you are listening to both,” Dawson said. “I came here today to achieve two things.

“First, I want to honor my home country and its people, my people. I want to return, in some small measure, the good fortune that I've received in my life from sport.

Second, I want to speak for future generations in Korea and beyond. I ask you to give them the same chance that I received when I moved to America in 1981 — the chance to hope, the chance to participate, the chance to excel and the chance to succeed.”

After he left the stage, Dawson told reporters that giving the speech was, “absolutely nerve-wracking, but I thought I had a great story to tell.”

Lives in progress

Kim Bong-seok was 3 years old when he was abandoned on the doorstep of a police station in Pusan, in the far south of Korea. He spent six months in an orphanage before the Dawsons adopted him and brought him to Vail.

He won about every honor and award skiing had to offer, including a 2006 Olympic medal.

That Olympic medal unlocked part of his past, beginning in 2007. Dawson was in Seoul to help promote Pyeongchang's 2014 Olympic bid when his biological father, Jae Soo Kim, walked into a news conference unannounced.

Dawson says he knew immediately it was his father, but that first meeting was a little awkward.

Since then, Dawson, his father and biological brother, Hyun Chul Kim, have met three times.

Since then, the Korean people have embraced him, Dawson says, and he's learning all he can about being a Korean-American.

“There is no greater honor than representing one's country at the Olympic Games,” Dawson told the IOC.” It is my dream that every child, everywhere in the world, can hope for that possibility,” he said. “Thank you for the promise of hope.”

Staff Writer Randy Wyrick can be reached at 970-748-2935 or rwyrick@vaildaily.com.