The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 5 letter word OWENS
I've seen this crossword clue in Financial Times
O
W
E
N
S
More clues leading to the result OWENS
- Athlete, once in US, New Orleans sent back
- Olympian who enraged Nazi sensibilities, primarily!
- Great athlete has ingested drug
- Wherein he now ensured gold medal status
- Old Olympian overtakes new one, running backwards for a stretch?
- Earliest of Olympians reaching all four corners of the globe as inspiring athlete
- Be in debt to Poles for Olympian
- Olympian has covered last mile
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "Great athlete" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case great athlete = owens.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.