CHICAGO (AP) — Ski jumpers as young as four years old train and compete on a hill created by a glacier in suburban Chicago.

Dozens of girls and boys train two nights a week at the Norge Ski Club about 40 miles northwest of the city.

And it’s not far fetched to suggest one or more of the young jumpers may land in the Olympics someday.

The mostly flat Chicago area may not seem like a ski jumping hotbed, but there’s a hill created by a glacier that has been a home for the sport since 1905.

Three men will represent the club for a second straight Winter Olympics.

Former Norge Ski Club ski jumpers Kevin Bickner and Casey Larson will become two-time Olympians at the Beijing Games and Patrick Gasienica earned a spot for the first time this year.

Bickner, who is 25, and the 23-year-old Larson grew up practicing and competing in Fox River Grove, Illinois, where a five-hill jumping complex pops out of nowhere.

Like other kids, they started off on smaller hills and worked their way up to a 70-meter hill that gives Olympic hopefuls a chance to live their dreams.

“You don’t have to be from a mountain town to become a great ski jumper,” says Guy Larson, chairman of the Norge Ski Training Center and father of two-time Olympian Casey Larson, adding “It is a very exciting thing for the young kids to look up and know that we have athletes from this club who are competing all over the world.”

There are 31 ski jumping clubs in 12 states, spanning from Alaska to New Hampshire, that are part of competitions.

It is a niche sport for Americans, who have a slew of sports to choose from to participate in and watch, with limited access points.

The COVID-19 pandemic increased interest in the sport among parents looking for ways to keep their young children busy when they were unable to play other sports.

“Having two boys of a young age, they were in several sports that were indoors and those got shut down, and it made you kind of look for other avenues for them to get outside and get that energy out,” says Ashley Stanton, mother of 5-year-old Cole and 7-year-old Miles, who train twice a week at the Fox River Grove club.

Jake Lindquist says his 4-year-old daughter, Julia, was drawn to the sport when her parents would drive around the Fox River Grove, Illinois, area for something safe to do during the COVID-19 pandemic last year.

Each time the family of four drove near Norge Ski Club last year, the little girl in the back of the car told her parents of her hopes and dreams.

“She consistently kept saying, ‘I’m going to do that. I want to jump. I’m going to go down that.,’ says Lindquist, “It never let up.”