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Documentary to feature Vail’s Toby Dawson

Special to the DailyA documentary movie featuring Toby Dawson follows the Vail ski racer on an emotional journey back to his birthplace of South Korea.
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VAIL, Colorado – “Toby Dawson – Lost and Found,” a one-hour documentary about the 2006 freestyle mogul skiing bronze medalist from Vail, is set to premier on Saturday, April 9, on Denver’s ABC affiliate, KMGH-TV 7.

The documentary chronicles the story of Toby Dawson as he travels to his birthplace of South Korea to document his being named an ambassador for PyeongChang’s bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics. The movie also reveals his emotional return to the market where he was separated from his family at the age of 2.

“Toby Dawson – Lost and Found” will air around the world in over 40 countries in Europe, Asia, Southeast Asia, New Zealand and Australia. The trailer can be viewed online at vimeo.com/channels/jalbertproductions#20926636.



“It really has been an amazing ride for me,” said Dawson, 32. “I can’t say enough about the overwhelming support I have received from family in Vail and in South Korea. I once felt lost and stuck between two different worlds, but now, I can honestly say I am comfortable with my background.”

Dawson’s remarkable story has often been referred to as stranger than fiction. Born in Pusan, South Korea, as Kim Bong-seok, Dawson was separated from his mother at the age of two in a crowded Pusan market and placed in a government-run orphanage.

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Despite his father’s desperate efforts to find him, Dawson was adopted by an American couple from Vail, who were both ski instructors. Adapting to his new home in America was difficult for Dawson since the only Asian face he saw in Vail was that of his own.

Seemingly out of place he was a bit timid and recluse, but not when he was on skis. Skiing became hiss passion and eventually it lead to him Olympic glory and to rediscover his South Korean roots.

The media frenzy created by his bronze medal performance in freestyle mogul skiing at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, splashed his image and story all over the Korean media. It did not take long, only hours after winning his medal, for men across South Korea to reach out to him and lay claim to being his biological father. However, with the help of a Korean governmental agency, sifting through thousands of inquires, Dawson decided to undergo DNA testing to determine who was his real father.

Kim Jaw-Su, a 53-year-old bus driver from Busan, was a perfect match and bore an uncanny resemblance right down to his heavy beard.

In the end it was the mountain which brought Dawson home.

“We were very honored that Toby chose to share his story with us and let us share it with the world,” said Director Jay Jalbert, of Jalbert Productions International. “Our goal was to capture the adversity Toby had to overcome and how skiing helped him to find himself, his father and embrace his homeland of South Korea.”


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