Anthony Mundine, world champion boxer

Noel McKenna's more recent watercolours based on newspaper photographs focus on athletes experiencing exceptional moments of triumph, tragedy and controversy. In the popular imagination, sport is far grander than everyday life; it's about stirring contests, world records, heroes and legends. Grasping the extraordinary in sport poses challenges to fan and artist alike. How exactly is an extraordinary achievement defined? The most obvious method is performance statistics, as McKenna recognises in Shane Keith Warne, Test Record (2010). A greater challenge lies in the contemporary corruption of the idea of the extraordinary in sport. Sceptical audiences worry that, in the age of televised and commodified sport, contests have become 'pseudo-events'; thrilling but artificially concocted media spectacles. In Anthony Mundine, world champion boxer (2010), McKenna considers that, like many contemporary athletes, Mundine's career is propelled as much by his media performances outside the ring as his sporting prowess. This phenomena is perhaps the greatest threat to the extraordinary in sport. As McKenna suggests in Michael Pup Clarke with Lara Bingle (2008-2010), media hype places peripheral figures centre stage and relegates sporting champions to minor parts.