KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia -- Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyse are longtime teammates, friends and now two-time Olympic bobsled champions.
Like sisters, they will sometimes finish each other's sentences. One can quickly sense the strong bond they have established from years of training and travelling together while competing all over the world.
But they weren't always this tight. In fact, they went more than two years without speaking to each other.
Back in the Olympic season of 2005-'06, Moyse and Humphries were rivals. They were competing with Jaime Cruickshank for brakeman spots on the Canadian roster for the Turin Games.
Moyse, who had played for the national rugby team, was new to bobsled. Blessed with tremendous strength and raw power, the Summerside, P.E.I., native made her first run down the track in October 2005.
Her push times were so impressive that she was eventually tabbed for the Canada 1 sled with pilot Helen Upperton.
Humphries, from Calgary, had been with the program for a few years. She started out as a pilot in 2002 before switching to the brakeman position.
She had posted solid times in the leadup to Turin. If she couldn't get the Canada 1 spot, she was confident she'd get the nod in the Canada 2 sled with pilot Suzanne Gavine-Hlady.
Instead, Humphries ended up being the odd one out.
Just four days before the start of competition, she was told that Cruickshank would get the spot instead. Humphries was crushed.
As upset as she was, Humphries embraced her role as an alternate, cheered on her teammates and tried to make the most of it. She also decided right then and there that she wanted to be a pilot so that she could control her own destiny.
The Turin experience nearly ended the friendship between Humphries and Moyse. There were hurt feelings due to team politics and a lot of miscommunication.
"It wasn't just us, it was a whole big mishmash of a lot of stuff and we didn't speak for about two years not really knowing or understanding (why)," Humphries said Wednesday, as her and Moyse reflected on the past after defending their Olympic title.
A long European road trip helped turned things around.
It was late 2008 and Humphries was driving Moyse and another teammate to the next stop on the bobsled circuit. It was a long trip, but there was more awkward silence than any meaningful conversation.
Moyse tried some jokes, tried talking about men, their fellow competitors, but nothing was working.
She eventually reached for a book that she'd packed to help pass the time. It was loaded with hundreds of questions -- all beginning with the word 'If' -- that you could ask people around you for fun.
Moyse wasn't paying much attention to the text and was simply reading the questions out cold. They were rather innocuous, like 'If you could have dinner with any three people in the world, who would they be?'
Then she got to one that really heightened the tension.
"If you could get back at anyone who has wronged you in the past or who has done something...."
Moyse's voice trailed off. Her teammate in the front passenger seat looked back at her in stunned silence with eyebrows raised.
No one said a word. The seconds felt like minutes.
Unsure of what to do, Moyse made a joking comment in hopes of clearing the tension.
"I'm probably in your top 10, aren't I Kaillie?"
Even more awkward silence. Then Humphries finally broke the ice.
"Finally Kaillie just said, 'Actually I've come to realize that what happened in (Turin) had nothing to do with you. It wasn't your fault, you were just doing your job."'
It was a seismic development, one that seemed to lift a weight from both their shoulders. They could finally talk about things.
While they had been professional in their interaction as teammates, they had put walls in place when it came to their relationship. That one moment helped change that.
"As soon as she said that, I just realized that she hadn't blamed me for what had happened in (Turin)," Moyse said. "It was huge."
A few weeks later, a coach asked Moyse if she would race with Humphries. She said yes and they were on their way, two athletes who both had something to prove.
"Right from the get-go we had a chemistry on the ice that was awesome," Moyse said.
"It was there," Humphries added. "The chemistry on the ice allowed us to be around each other more and to have a common goal. That was the biggest thing. Both of us, right from the start, we both respected each other and our jobs and what we were doing and the rest could come and we knew that."
Trust and friendship would blossom from there. The Vancouver Games were a year away.
They entered the 2010 Olympics as underdogs and emerged as champions. Moyse later took a break from the sport for a couple years but returned this past season and it was like she'd never left.
They won their first World Cup race of the season last fall in Calgary, entered the Sochi Games as favourites and showed they could repeat.
Their bond was evident Wednesday night at the Sanki Sliding Center.
After their victory, an ecstatic Moyse and Humphries raced to the front row of spectators to share the moment with friends and family. After a moment or two to celebrate, the Canadian duo was ushered down some stairs to the back of the finish area to line up with the other medallists for the flower presentation.
It was there that they finally caught their breath. Music was thumping in the background and the fans were cheering but it actually seemed like a quiet moment for Moyse and Humphries.
They hugged one more time, smiled at each other and exhaled.
Moyse slowly and gently straightened her teammate's long blond hair under her Canada hat. Humphries did the same with Moyse's long red locks.
All the work, all the ups and downs, all the long training sessions -- it had all been worth it. They would return to the top step of the Olympic podium as teammates -- and friends.
