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:

Haughey, a 26-year-old from Toronto, said her teammate’s dual exploits are “admirable.”

“I think her pursuing firefighting has allowed her to grow and develop as a human. And in that it’s helped her be a better athlete. She knows how to manage her time. She’s committed to both firefighting and bobsledding,” Haughey said.

“It’s been cool to uplift each other and try to come out on top, even though the cards are stacked against us.”

Haughey has even taken a page from Ribi’s playbook — in addition to bobsleigh, the ex-rugby player is eyeing a spot on Canada’s women’s flag football team for the 2026 Olympics.

What she may soon learn, however, is that Ribi’s lifestyle is one that has required significant attention to detail.

Asked to describe Ribi in a word, Olympic gold medallist and bobsleigh coach Justin Kripps said “meticulous.”

“She’s a perfectionist with everything bobsleigh and I’m sure in her life as well, but I notice when I give her advice on equipment or driving lines, it’s not usually a quick conversation. She really makes sure that she understands what I’m saying, like really down to the detail,” Kripps said.

“That’s a really good trait for a pilot to have…the devil’s in the details and every last bit counts.”

A perfectionist

Kripps recalled showing Ribi a specific way of polishing the blades on her sled with a microscope — a technique he once used.

Ribi took the method to the extreme.

“She was painstakingly checking each bit with the microscope and taking hours and hours to polish the runner. Then I think her brakewomen were getting kind of mad at me because they were having to spend so long and they wished I didn’t tell her about that,” Kripps said.

Haughey laughed when she was reminded of the instance.

“We chatted about it. We deliberated about it. It took a while for her to give up the hundredth [of a second] in the runner, because that hundredth in the runner is gonna cost us like an hour of work. And maybe it’s a hundredth, who knows?” Haughey said.

“We could stop now, save ourselves an hour and spend however much time recovering, relaxing, eating even, and just being off our feet.”

Ribi’s balancing act

The balancing act paid off when Ribi and Haughey won each of their two-woman bobsleigh races at their most recent event on the North American Cup (NAC) circuit in Whistler, B.C., despite some slight scratches on their runners.

The schedule — moving back to the NAC after a full year on the World Cup tour last season — is a result of Ribi’s firefighting demands and the necessary compromise while she pursues both endeavours.

In the new year, Ribi and Haughey will move back to the World Cup with goals of qualifying for worlds and winning a medal.

It means the Canadian is more well-rounded than many of her competitors, but on the flip side, she’s not as specialized.

“It will be a challenge to find that balance. But you know, if anybody can do it, it’s Bianca. She’s sort of your classic high achiever, right? So I think she’s the type of person that can balance that sort of thing,” Kripps said.

And so as she attacks her unique path to athletic stardom, Ribi will lean on her attention to detail while also attempting to delicately balance the demands of her two pursuits.

“The race is won and lost by hundredths of a second. … you blink and it’s over. … and so I find that all of these small details, they all add up to winning or losing,” she said.

“[But] I actually have to tone down the meticulousness because there is such a thing is too much. So I’m constantly finding that line of what is still good enough while also not beating a dead horse.”

On the other hand, Haughey described herself as “the person who’s like, if it’s not perfect, it’ll be fine.”

“Even though we’re exact opposites, it’s been fun.”