Famous Olympian thus astride fresh mounts (5)
I believe the answer is:
owens
'famous olympian' is the definition.
'owens' can be an answer for 'olympian' (Jesse Owens 1913-1980). I am unsure of the 'famous' bit.
'thus astride fresh mounts' is the wordplay.
'thus' becomes 'so' (synonyms).
'astride' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'fresh' becomes 'new' (synonyms).
'mounts' shows that the letters should be reversed in order (I've seen 'mounting' mean this (going up in a down clue)).
'so' enclosing 'new' is 'snewo'.
'snewo' backwards is 'OWENS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for owens that I've seen before include "Jesse -, four-times Olympic gold medallist" , "Jesse who ran" , "Great athlete" , "Olympic athlete" , "former athlete" .)