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Dublin: Gay Rugby World Cup kicks off

Sat 14 Jun 2008 In: International News View at Wayback

Hundreds of sports enthusiasts from around the world are in Dublin this weekend for the gay rugby world cup - billed as "the biggest, gayest rugby tournament ever." Set to scrum: Ireland's Emerald Warriors club The International Gay Rugby Association holds the Bingham Cup in a different world city every two years. The Emerald Warriors beat out competing bids from Paris and Sydney to hold the 2008 Bingham Cup. The tournament is named after Mark Bingham, a member of the San Francisco Fog gay rugby club, who lost his life on 11 September 2001 aboard United flight 93. Organisers hope the tournament will promote rugby as an all-inclusive sport which everyone can play, regardless of sexuality. "When they hear the word gay and rugby in a sentence, people tend to react. There is an immediate 'those two things don't belong together'," organiser Nick Costello told the BBC. "We've had a fairly broad range of reaction. From inside the gay community it's almost uniformly positive." Thirty-two teams are competing for the Bingham Cup this year. Australia is represented as two teams from Sydney are going, but no team from New Zealand was organised this year.    

Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff

First published: Saturday, 14th June 2008 - 10:15am

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