By Liz Hampton and Tommy Lund
TESERO, Italy, Feb 4 (Reuters) - The U.S. ski jumpers set to soar from the massive hills in Predazzo when the Olympics get underway this week are not just hoping to win medals -- they also want their sport to take off and gain traction with the American audience.
The Olympic events will take place on the large hill and normal hill measuring 143 metres and 109 metres, but the sport still lacks the profile in the United States that it enjoys in countries such as Norway and Slovenia,
the latter boasting ski jumpers at the top of the men's and women's World Cup standings.
For Americans, the history books make for grim reading, with the country's only medal being a bronze won by Anders Haugen at the inaugural 1924 Chamonix Winter Games.
"There's a lot of parts of the world that look at this sport as something they watch daily and weekly. In America it’s a four-year thing," said Kevin Bickner, 29, a senior member of the U.S. Olympic ski jumping team.
"I think a big issue is access to the sport, if there is a way to realise that there is a full World Cup circuit and a way to watch it and with the level of jumping going up for all the teams across the board, results will get notoriety," he added.
Tate Frantz, 20, is competing in his first Olympics.
"Ski jumping is a pretty darn cool sport when you think about it and I think that it's something that could really, really pop off in the U.S.," he said.
"Watching people fly down a jump going 60 or 70 miles an hour, at the speed of a car. And if you talk it up like that to Americans, I think that you can get a lot of people to support that."
(Reporting by Liz Hampton and Tommy Lund in Tesero, editing by Ed Osmond)
