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Fire and ice: How Bianca Ribi balances job as firefighter with Olympic bobsleigh dream

It was not the kind of icy track on which Bianca Ribi and Niamh Haughey would soon excel.

En route to the 2021 junior bobsleigh world championships in St. Moritz, Switzerland — the birthplace of the sport —  the Canadian duo had to navigate mountainous Swiss backroads in a sprinter van amidst a snowstorm.

Haughey, typically the brakewoman, is in the driver's seat. To her right, Ribi is studying the St. Moritz track while commanding her teammate to drive straight.

"We're just white-knuckling the road. And the whole time we're just laughing and being like, 'what is our life right now?'" Haughey recalled.

"You could go home and try to explain the story and people won't really understand, but we're sitting in the car and we're like, we don't know where we are. We could get lost. We could go off the side of the mountain. And that's just part of the sport."

By 11 p.m., Ribi and Haughey arrived safely at their destination.

Nearly four years later, the two-woman bobsleigh team has its sights set on March's world championships in Lake Placid, N.Y. — a track so close to Canada that Ribi and Haughey see it as a home game.

Their relationship has landed them on the cusp of the 2026 Olympics, and was forged on ice and through fire.

Ribi, 28, works as a full-time firefighter in Calgary in addition to pursuing her Olympic goals.

"I feel like not a lot of people get the opportunity to pursue two dreams at once. So while it is crazy and hectic, in the midst of that, I'm constantly reminding myself how fortunate I feel," Ribi said.

WATCH | Calgary native Ribi victorious in World Cup monobob debut in Whistler:

Winnipeg's Bianca Ribi strikes gold in World Cup monobob debut in Whistler

Haughey, a 26-year-old from Toronto, said her

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