Nine-year-old Kathyaayani “Katya” Gampa of Richmond Hill, Ontario, made history this summer at the 2026 American Youth on Parade (AYOP) National Championships in South Bend, Indiana, winning a national pageant in baton twirling, a sport that few newcomer communities are attracted to.
Not only was a Canadian winning the title in this category after a 15-year gap, her coach said, but Katya represents a growing diverse pool of baton twirlers drawn from people of colour. Megan Ward, who has coached Katya since she was six, described baton twirling as similar to rhythmic gymnastics, blending dance with strength, flexibility and performance skills.
She said the sport remains little known in Canada largely because competitions are not televised and the community is small, with most public exposure coming through parades and performances.
The win makes her the first Canadian in 15 years to take the title, and the first Indo-Canadian ever to become an AYOP National Pageant Champion.
AYOP is held annually at the University of Notre Dame and draws hundreds of competitors from the United States, Canada and Europe. Katya’s category, juvenile beginner, is for athletes between the ages of seven and nine who have advanced past the novice level.
She competed against 36 girls in her age group across three disciplines: modelling, strut and solo twirling. She placed first in strut and eighth in solo, and the combination of her scores across all three events was enough to win her the overall pageant title.
Feeling welcomed
Katya trains with Stars United Baton and Dance, a Richmond Hill club that has operated for more than 50 years, under coaches Satyne Ward and her daughter Megan Ward.
Katya said she got into the sport because her older sister did it first. Her favourite part, she said, is hanging out with friends while twirling. Before competing, she said she tends to overthink. When she found out she had won, she said it felt amazing.
Her mother, Sushma, said the family’s path to baton twirling began almost by accident. They moved to Canada from Hong Kong at the end of 2019, when Katya was two and a half. A few months later, the country went into COVID-19 lockdown, and Sushma said she was looking for something to keep her two daughters occupied. A friend mentioned a local baton twirling club, and the coaches delivered a baton to the family’s home so the girls could start classes online.
“I did not know anything about the sport, nor how big it is, nor all the competitions, nor what the competition season entails,” Sushma said. “We had absolutely no idea.” Katya’s older sister took to the sport first, and Katya, drawn by her bond with coach Megan Ward through the online classes, followed. The girls did not begin training in person until 2022, and Katya started competing in 2024.
Sushma said one of the biggest challenges as a newcomer parent was simply finding information about activities for her children. “The information was quite scattered, quite difficult to get our hands on,” she said. Logistics added another challenge: her husband did not drive, so she alone managed getting both daughters to and from practices while both parents worked full time.
Sushma also spoke about what the win means beyond the sport itself. Having lived in Hong Kong for more than 20 years before the move, she said she had worried about whether her daughters would find acceptance and community in a new country. She said baton twirling, despite having little racial or ethnic diversity among competitors and judges, turned out to be a place where her family felt welcomed.
“I must say, this is a sport which has little diversity, ethnic and racial diversity,” she said. “And even in a sport like this, we found a lot of acceptance. Their club has been fantastic.”
Ward said Katya’s win carries added significance given the sport’s demographics. “A lot of times baton twirling can be pretty white dominant,” she said, “and it’s really nice that different ethnicities are able to participate in all these competitions, and they’re scored fairly just like everybody else.” She said her own club includes children of Chinese, Persian and Indian backgrounds among others.
Katya’s achievement was recognized locally on Tuesday, when the Richmond Hill mayor’s office presented her with a scroll of honour.
Shilpashree Jagannathan is a Hamilton-based freelance journalist and editor whose work has appeared in CBC News, New Canadian Media, The Margin, Business Insider, TRT World and Mint, and has been republished by The Walrus. She reports on immigration, labour, affordability, housing, elections, climate impacts and social justice, focusing on how policy and power shape the lives of households, workers, newcomers and local communities. Drawing on more than a decade in business journalism in India and a strong background in investigations, research and editorial work, she brings rigour and empathy to stories that trace the gap between policy and lived experience. She has also appeared on podcasts and radio programs to discuss her reporting and its broader public-policy implications.
