Athletic Chaplin for head of Disney! (7)

I believe the answer is:

linford

'athletic' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I can't judge whether it can be defined by this definition.

'chaplin for head of disney' is the wordplay.
'chaplin' becomes 'lin' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'head of' suggests taking the first letters.
The initial letter of 'disney' is 'd'.
'lin'+'for'+'d'='LINFORD'

I've seen this clue in The Guardian.

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