Sportsmen will distort the tales (8)
I believe the answer is:
athletes
'sportsmen' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'distort the tales' is the wordplay.
'distort' indicates an anagram (I've seen 'distorted' mean this).
'the'+'tales'='thetales'
'thetales' is an anagram of 'ATHLETES'.
'will' is the link.
(Other definitions for athletes that I've seen before include "Oddely, the least of it is they're fit" , "Al, the set is up for the physically skilled" , "Fungal infection" , "Sporty types" , "People trained to compete in sports" .)