Come out tops in the ballet competition? (3,2,6)

'ballet competition?' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I can't tell whether this works.

'come out tops in the' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'in' is within the answer.
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is present in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).

Can you help me to learn more?