Dawson hopes for Olympic medal as coach

Toby Dawson of the United States celebrates in the finish area after winning bronze in the freestyle skiing men's moguls final at the Turin 2006 Winter Olympics, Feb. 15, 2006 in Sauze d'Oulx, Italy. / Korea Times file

By Yoon Chul

On July 6 in Durban, South Africa, a dream team of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics and Paralympics Bid Committee accomplished something wonderful. The members, including Toby Dawson, a Korea-born American skier, delivered a touching presentation in front of International Olympic Committee (IOC) members.

“It was fantastic experience,” Dawson, 32, told the Korea Times in an interview.

The bid committee won the right to host the 2018 Winter Games.

Dawson, a U.S. bronze medalist in mogul skiing at the 2006 Turin Olympics, joined the PyeongChang bid committee at the beginning of its bid efforts.

Dawson was born in Busan as Kim Bong-seok. He became separated from his parents in a market when he was three and was later adopted by two ski instructors from Vail, Colo.

The committee needed someone who could appeal emotionally in fluent English and decided to tap Dawson for the final presentation of its third consecutive bid.

“The night before the presentation I had an opportunity to work with actor Jung Joon-ho. He just wanted to give me advice and tips to help me present a little smoother,” Dawson said.

“I already... knew my speech, I knew I had good emotion, but he just wanted me to show my own emotion as much as I felt it. Because when you’re doing a presentation people are viewing you and so they can hear you but they are also visually looking at you.”

Dawson stood in front of the IOC members and his presentation buttressed PyeongChang’s triumph.

People anticipated that the bid committee members would throw a big celebration party but not everyone followed the expectations.

“Everyone was working so hard for this bid. Right after, it was more relief — when we won, everyone was so excited but we were all relieved because we were done and we won. We put so much energy into the presentation ... everyone was tired too.”

Dawson, who played an important part in PyeongChang’s historical bid victory, now wants to lead Korea’s national freestyle mogul ski team.

Dawson and Korea Ski Association (KSA) have been in negotiations over him becoming the national coach.

He emphasized how important it is for athletes to generate impressive results in the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games.

As talks between him and the KSA are taking longer than expected, Dawson is concerned about the nation’s mogul skiers.

“My biggest worry is (that) 2018 is not very far away. Every month is so valuable right now,” Dawson said.

“I have seen Seo Jung-hwa ski but I haven’t seen the others but I have had the chance to see other athletes. Their talents are OK. There is a lot to do.”

Dawson said that Korean skiers have a chance to win medals in 2018 and there is still sufficient time to prepare if the team starts now.

“They need to have the basic foundation of strength and then they can ski at a higher level,” Dawson explained.

“When it comes to the Olympics we need to do small final things to make everything perfect.”

Mogul skiers need to travel in order to take part in different competitions in the winter season.

The summer is the time to improve their abilities and tricks.

“The only time to practice improving, to get better is summer. You can’t practice and improve while you are competing. You have to just maintain the level.”

When the season is over, that’s when one starts building muscles to gain quickness, learn new tricks and work on technique. Once competition begins, the competition should be all consuming, he went on to say.

Dawson added that world trends in skiing are veering towardfreestyle mogul skiing, half-pipe skiing and snowboarding, and these action sports may well emerge as main competitive events in future Olympics.

“People like watching those kinds of sports rather than traditional ones. I think the future Olympics are definitely heading towards action sports,” Dawson said.

“I am not putting down other sports. But you can see the revolution. The Olympics brings all new exciting sports. They are seeing people (who) don’t want to see old sports anymore.”

He said youths prefer high energy, exciting and dangerous events and the extreme action sports will meet the new generation’s demands.

The 32-year-old skier also switched from traditional ski races to freestyle moguls because it was fun and excited him.

“When I turned 13, I started to love it because there is no constraint. When you race you have to go around the gate.

“I can show my personality (in mogul skiing).“

Dawson also revealed the story behind his achievement in Turin.

“They changed the rules just before the Olympics. They started counting carving higher which gave me lot of points in the Olympics.”

Dawson is a specialist in carving turns. Before the Turin Games, carving turns and skidding or sliding turns receivedsimilar scores even though carving requires a higher technical ability. But the rule changeds and Dawson, prepared, seized the advantage.

“They also changed the degree of difficulty for tricks and my tricks scores were higher too. So I could grab the medal,” he said.

Dawson had expected negotiations with the KSA to end sooner. He said he is likely to return to the United States in November if the talks don’t work out.

According to the KSA officials, the association is positive about bringing in Dawson, but they need time. They did not elaborate further on why more time was needed.

Meanwhile, the current national team freestyle mogul skiers such as Seo Myung-joon, younger brother of Seo jung-hwa, said he hoped to be coached by Dawson.

The Seo brothers and other national team skiers still pay out of their own pocket for a private coach.

If Korea appoints a national mogul coach, the athletes are expected to fully focus on training without worrying about the financial aspect.