A sportsman gets the tale wrong (7)
I believe the answer is:
athlete
'a sportsman' is the definition.
(type of sportsman)
'the tale wrong' is the wordplay.
'wrong' indicates an anagram.
'the'+'tale'='thetale'
'thetale' is an anagram of 'ATHLETE'.
'gets' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for athlete that I've seen before include "The late one is very fit, oddly" , "Runner, jumper, thrower" , "eg Dean Macey" , "Track eventer" , "Bolt perhaps" .)