Cope with medal and other things involved (3,5)
I believe the answer is:
get along
'cope' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'medal and other things involved' is the wordplay.
'medal' becomes 'gong' (informal term for a medal or prize).
'and other things' becomes 'et al' (I've seen this before).
'involved' indicates putting letters inside.
'gong' placed around 'etal' is 'GET ALONG'.
'with' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for get along that I've seen before include "Associate harmoniously" , "Given leave" , "Be on good terms" , "Make progress or move on" , "manage to be friendly" .)