{"id":26891,"date":"2025-05-07T09:00:18","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T16:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/?p=26891"},"modified":"2025-05-02T10:58:05","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T17:58:05","slug":"pieces-of-performance-decathlon-queen-running-for-gold-in-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2025\/05\/07\/pieces-of-performance-decathlon-queen-running-for-gold-in-design\/","title":{"rendered":"<em>Pieces of Performance<\/em>: Decathlon Queen running for gold in design"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The multi-talented Decathlon Queen has made a name for herself in the past three years of drag. From Ottawa to Vancouver Island, this decathlon-runner-gone-drag-queen has something to prove.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cSports is the main reason I got into drag&#8230; My name is the track-and-field event I competed in up to a national level,\u201d says Decathlon Queen.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_26892\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-26892\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Copy-of-dynosdrag-kzeilstraphoto-2024-1-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-26892\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Copy-of-dynosdrag-kzeilstraphoto-2024-1-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Copy-of-dynosdrag-kzeilstraphoto-2024-1-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Copy-of-dynosdrag-kzeilstraphoto-2024-1-467x700.jpg 467w, https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Copy-of-dynosdrag-kzeilstraphoto-2024-1-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Copy-of-dynosdrag-kzeilstraphoto-2024-1-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Copy-of-dynosdrag-kzeilstraphoto-2024-1-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Copy-of-dynosdrag-kzeilstraphoto-2024-1-400x600.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Copy-of-dynosdrag-kzeilstraphoto-2024-1-scaled.jpg 1707w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-26892\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Decathlon Queen climbing the rocks; sports is the main reason she got into drag (photo by Katie Zeilstra Photography).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A self-proclaimed pride queen, she is sure to keep you in check and outdo everyone when it comes to preparing an outfit. Sewing until the last minute some days, she says what drew her to patterns and pins was influenced by other drag queens.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSeason two of <i>Canada\u2019s Drag Race<\/i>&#8230; Icesis Couture inspired me to buy a sewing machine and teach myself how to sew.\u201d <span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Being a newer queen in Victoria, she has brought her passion for sports and community with her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery year in the month of June, any money that I make through my drag is put towards a scholarship for a queer varsity athlete,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>So far she has helped three athletes get closer to reaching their goals of balancing school and sport.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cHaving a career in human kinetics, something that I am very passionate about is getting people moving, trying new things, trying to find something you enjoy to keep [yourself] active,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>Reflecting on her past research on masculinity and homophobia in sports, one quote from a participant in the research group rang true.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen asking what we needed in sports,\u201d she says, \u201cthey responded with, \u2018We need more acceptance in sports, we need a screaming queen to come out and say, \u201cI\u2019m going to kick your ass.\u201d\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And with that, the athletic screaming queen Decathlon Queen was born. With movement on the mind, she has put together a wide range of shows, from design competitions to heels and wall climbing. At her first-year anniversary show in Ottawa, she shared the magic of bouldering and drag at a local bouldering house. In Victoria, she recently took over and hosted at Boulder House Langford.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe partnered with GOATS, which is a queer rock-climbing organization. We had two headlining queens&#8230; It was just packed full of people,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>Decathlon Queen says that it\u2019s been difficult being the only one publicly queer in her athletic community.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGrowing up in the sports world as a queer person, it was not the best environment,\u201d she says. \u201c[But] I was fortunate in the sense that things were getting better [with] the physical and verbal assault.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While having found safety within the community, when you present ideas that can be met with excitement and joy, that can be all the steam you need to stay creative. The Taylor Swift fantasy being one idea: <i>The Tortured Drag Department <\/i>is a show shared with Aria Okay and Drew Scarywhore on May 8 at Friends of Dorothy.<\/p>\n<p>The feeling of pride in winning cannot be beat for Decathlon Queen; she\u2019s sharing her love of competition by hosting a variety of drag events that encourage skill building, playful banter, and a safe stage to try new things.<\/p>\n<p>Friends of Dorothy will host the next competition, <i>Lip Sync Assassin of Dorothy<\/i>. Six competitors. One winner.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>You can follow Decathlon Queen at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/decathlonqueen\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@decathlonqueen<\/a> and at @<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/mugdevents\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">mugdevents<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The multi-talented Decathlon Queen has made a name for herself in the past three years of drag. From Ottawa to Vancouver Island, this decathlon-runner-gone-drag-queen has something to prove.\u00a0 \u201cSports is the main reason I got into drag&#8230; My name is the track-and-field event I competed in up to a national level,\u201d says Decathlon Queen. A [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26892,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,332],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-may-7-2025"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26891"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26893,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26891\/revisions\/26893"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}