Women footballers (Italian) exercise with special competitions on cold surfaces (6,6)
I believe the answer is:
winter sports
'competitions on cold surfaces' is the definition.
The definition suggests a plural noun which matches the answer.
'women footballers italian exercise with special' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'women' could be 'w' (standard abbreviation) and 'w' is found in the answer.
'footballers' could be 'inter' (I have seen 'foreign footballers' mean 'inter' so perhaps 'footballers' could also mean 'inter') and 'inter' is located in the answer.
'exercise' could be 'sport' (I've seen this before) and 'sport' is located in the answer.
'special' could be 's' (common abbreviation as in Special Air Service) and 's' is found in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for winter sports that I've seen before include "some Olympics" , "Skiing, bobsleigh etc" , "one of them is downhill" .)