After contest, woman raised capital (6)
I believe the answer is:
vienna
'capital' is the definition.
(capital of Austria)
'after contest woman raised' is the wordplay.
'after' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'contest' becomes 'vie' (I've seen this in other clues).
'woman' becomes 'Ann' (woman's name).
'raised' shows that the letters should be reversed in order (going up in a down clue).
'ann' back-to-front is 'nna'.
'vie' put next to 'nna' is 'VIENNA'.
(Other definitions for vienna that I've seen before include "Wien" , "Strauss 'Tales from the . . . . . . Woods'" , "sort of sausage" , "Capital city on the Danube" , "Austria's capital city" .)