The Mark Kendall Bingham Memorial Tournament or the Bingham Cup is a biennial international, non-professional, gay rugby union tournament, first held in 2002. It is named after Mark Bingham, who died on board United Airlines Flight 93 when it crashed during the September 11, 2001 attacks. The most recent tournament was held in Ottawa, Canada, in August 2022 and was won by the worlds first gay and inclusive rugby club the Kings Cross Steelers. History Founding In October 2000, gay and bisexual rugby union teams worldwide founded the International Gay Rugby Association and Board (IGRAB) as a body to promote rugby union as an all-inclusive non-discriminatory sport which everyone can play, regardless of sexuality. An informal invitational tournament, held in May 2001, was formally inaugurated by IGRAB as a new international rugby union competition — a gay rugby union world cup — which in a unanimous decision by all the members of IGRAB became known as the Bingham Cup. The tournament was named after Mark Bingham, a former University of California, Berkeley rugby star who had played in the May 2001 tournament for San Francisco Fog RFC and cofounded the Gotham Knights RFC. Bingham died in the September 11, 2001 attacks on board United Airlines Flight 93. According to Jon Barrett of The Advocate, he is generally accepted to be one of a group of passengers who fought with the hijackers aboard the flight, which eventually led to the hijackers crashing the plane into a vacant field in Pennsylvania instead of targets in Washington, D.C. At the time of his death, there were around eight gay-inclusive rugby clubs worldwide, and he was helping to create others. Washington invitational, 2001 In May 2001, in a precursor to the tournament, the Washington Renegades hosted an IGRAB International Invitational for gay rugby union teams in Washington D.C., United States. The event was officially a Rugby sevens tournament among the existing IGRAB teams at the time. In addition to the tournament, there was an exhibition rugby union or XVs matches. In the exhibition match between the San Francisco Fog RFC and the Renegades, the two played against each other for the first time in a XVs match. The Fog won 19-0. San Francisco, 2002 In October 2001, following the 2001 invitational, the San Francisco Fog successfully lobbied IGRAB for the right to put on a XVs rugby tournament in San Francisco in June 2002.