Learning Experience for Korean Moguls Skier

(ATR) It wasn’t the storybook ending that young Korean moguls skier Jae Woo Choi and his well-known coach Toby Dawson had hoped for.

Choi, 23, advanced to the second round of the men’s moguls finals, but then lost control launching off the bottom air, crashing and smacking his right side hard on the snow. He slowly rose to his feet, stood on the hill in disbelief and then skied down to the bottom to applause from the crowd on Monday night at Phoenix Snow Park.

"I’m really disappointed about the run – I thought I had a great run coming down from the top with the landing off the first jump," Choi told Around the Rings in the finish area.

"Somehow I caught myself on the last few moguls before the second jump, so it was hard to get grip on my ski off the jump and I ended up like that

"I’m a little sore – it was a hard crash and a real bummer that it happened."

Ranked fourth in the FIS World Cup standings this season and the first Korean skier to win a medal at the 2012 World Junior Championships, Choi was a legitimate contender to become South Korea’s first-ever Olympic skiing medalist. He finished a surprising 12th at Sochi 2014, just age 19.

"With this kind of field, you can’t really back off – I went for it, I thought I did my best," Choi said.

"A lot of people came out to show me the love and support me, the volunteers are doing a really good job and we have the best course in the world, it’s just a shame it came out like this," he said.

Choi and his young Korean teammates are coached by the American Dawson, who gained fame from his story that has touched the entire nation of South Korea.

"He just told me to let myself go, trust my skiing because I have the tools, just let it happen," Choi said of last minute advice from Dawson.

Lost at a Korean market at the age of three, Dawson was adopted by American parents, learning to ski in Colorado and rising to become a top-notch World Cup moguls skier competing for the United States Ski Team.

Dawson skied to a bronze medal in Torino 2006 and the exposure gained from his achievement led to him being re-united with his Korean biological parents.

Telling his story at the IOC Session in 2011, Dawson helped PyeongChang win the bid. "It was very humbling to meet different IOC members and have people come up to me and say things like I wasn’t planning to vote for Korea, but your story touched me so much I changed my vote," Dawson told Around the Rings.

With Dawson by his side and enormous pressure on his shoulders to stay alive in the competition, Choi delivered a clutch run in the final qualification leading his group of 10. The freestyle skier from Seoul continued to impress with a well-executed Cork 1080 off the top air in the second round of the finals before the mishap.

Choi’s parents, who volunteered for the Games, and brother Jae Hung, who returned from Canada, were in attendance, cheering and supporting him on what was a high-energy night under the lights at the PyeongChang 2018 freestyle skiing venue.

Two other Korean moguls skiers coached by Dawson competed on Monday night. Ji Hyon Kim, 22, and Myung Joon Seo, 25, skied respectably but failed to advance past the qualifiers.

"We’re pretty much like a family," Choi said of the Korean freestyle ski team.

With the expertise and commitment of Dawson, it seems evident that Korean freestyle skiing will only get bigger, better, higher and faster in the coming years.

"It has been a good start to the season until now," Choi said. "Toby is a really good coach – he knows my style and I know his. We have a lot of work to do."

Written and reported by Brian Pinelli in Bokwang

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