hankyoreh

American skier and Olympic medalist Toby Dawson, who made headlines by searching for his Korean biological father, was reunited with him Wednesday for the first time in 26 years.

"Father, you've been waiting for so long," Dawson said in Korean while hugging his tearful father, Kim Jae-soo, whom he had not seen since he was three years old.

"You're a strong man," Dawson told the 53-year-old bus driver who said he had lost Dawson in 1981 near a market in Busan, a southeastern port city.

Dawson, an ethnic Korean who won a bronze medal at the Turin Winter Olympic Games in 2006, was adopted and raised in the U.S. by an American couple after being found in Busan.

Dawson made international headlines about a year ago when he won the medal, going public with the story of his search for his biological parents.

Many men came forward, each claiming to be his father, but the skier finally learned through a DNA test a week ago that Kim was his real biological father.

"Don't cry," Dawson kept telling his father, who would not let go of his son's hand while caressing his hair from time to time as if he could not believe what he was seeing.

"I went from one orphanage to another, looking for you, but I couldn't find you. I'm sorry." Kim told Dawson, who said he asked himself for his entire life why he had been separated from his biological parents.

In this emotional meeting at a Seoul hotel, Dawson and his father showed delight for the entire one-hour news conference, with photographers trying to capture every facial expression and gesture they made to each other.

"This is going to be a day I'm going to remember for the rest of my life," Dawson said, adding he wanted to "start to foster this new relationship together."

Dawson had another surprise at the conference when Kim Hyun-cheol, a 24-year-old man believed to be his younger brother and once thought of as a "rumor" by Dawson, came up and hugged him.

The three men, sharing strikingly similar facial features, held each other and posed for the cameras that surrounded them.

"We're going to go now, and try to get to know each other on a little more personal intimate level," he told reporters.

The U.S. freestyle skier had made several trips to South Korea in 2005 to find his biological parents.

Im Sang-hyeok, a South Korean lawyer for Dawson, said the skier's biological mother, who divorced Dawson's father, has been located but that she has not come forward until now.

Dawson, who is to leave for the U.S. on Sunday, will visit an adoption agency, Holt International Children's Services, to prepare for the establishment of a private foundation in his name for adopted children.

The state-run Korea Tourism Organization has also invited Dawson to serve as an honorary ambassador for South Korean tourism.

Another organization, the Pyeongchang bidding committee for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, is to appoint him as an honorary ambassador for its bid.


Seoul, Feb. 28 (Yonhap News)