Gallant second in athletics (5)
I believe the answer is:
games
'athletics' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'gallant second' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'second' could be 's' (common abbreviation) and 's' is present in the answer.
The remaining letters 'game' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'in' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for games that I've seen before include "Sports and pastimes" , "Matches" , "Sporting contests" , "See 9" , "Such as football, snap, etc" .)