National dead heat reported (4)
I believe the answer is:
thai
'national' is the definition.
('Thai' is an example)
'dead heat reported' is the wordplay.
'dead heat' becomes 'tie' (I've seen this before).
'reported' shows a homophone (sound like).
'tie' is a homophone of 'THAI'.
(Other definitions for thai that I've seen before include "Coming from Bangkok?" , "Native of Southeast Asia" , "is concerned with an eastern country" , "eastern language" , "nationality" .)