Bingham Cup 2022

The Bingham Cup 2022 is scheduled to take place in Ottawa, Canada in August 2022 after the 2020 tournament was postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The social rugby tournament is considered one of the largest 15-a-side rugby events in the world and in 2020, teams from Asia (Japan) were looking to send a team to participate for the first time.

Bingham Cup 2022

The Bingham Cup will be celebrating its 10th edition in 2022. The International Gay Rugby (IGR) helps organise the tournament. The IGR Chair, Ben Owen, said in 2020 “The international gay rugby community is extremely excited that the Bingham Cup will be held in Canada for the first time – a country with a growing rugby community and a proud reputation of openness towards the LGBT+ community.”

Bingham Cup 2020 postponed

In March 2020, the organisers of the Bingham Cup made the decision to postpone the tournament to 2022 due to  COVID-19.

They posted:

“We were looking forward and were so excited to host you all for the Bingham Cup 2020 this August. However, due to the unfolding of the COVID-19 global pandemic and the impacts it is having around the world, your Bingham Cup Ottawa 2020 Organizing Committee as well as the IGR Trustees have made the difficult but necessary decision to postpone this year’s Bingham Cup Ottawa and reschedule the tournament for August 2022. You will find more detail, including reasoning and refunds, by reading the March 28 press release.

Each and every one of us in the community is having to deal with different types of grief because of this pandemic. We know you are hurting – we are too. We must all do our part in order to get past this safely and, from the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for understanding that this is the best way forward. In the meantime, hang tight, stay home, stay safe and check in on your community and loved ones. We will see each other soon.”

The press release added:

In order to ensure that the Bingham Cup remains on a regular schedule, the Organizing Committee and IGR Trustees have agreed that the Bingham Cup will be rescheduled to be held in Ottawa in August 2022. This will ensure that the groundwork already laid by the Ottawa Wolves and the Organizing Committee is not wasted. This also allows the Union Cup and the North American Championship tournaments to go ahead as planned.

Who was Mark Bingham?

Mark Bingham: May 22, 1970 – September 11, 2001

The tournament is named after Mark Bingham, a member of the San Francisco Fog team who died on United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11, 2001. He was hailed as a hero and credited as one of the passengers who took on the terrorists on-board, preventing the aircraft from reaching the intended target and thus saving more lives.

World Rugby made a documentary about Mark’s life and involvement in rugby which was released in 2019. You can watch Legacy: The Mark Bingham Story documentary online for free.

According to IGR, “The Bingham Cup is held in honour of Mark’s memory and challenges stereotypes and perceptions of the LGBT+ community.”

• Venue: Ottawa, Canada
• Date: TBC August 2022

You can also see more on their FB page.

Bingham Cup host cities

• 2002: San Francisco, CA, USA
• 2004: London, England
• 2006: New York City, NY, USA
• 2008: Dublin, Ireland
• 2010: Minneapolis, MN, USA
• 2012: Manchester, England
• 2014: Sydney, Australia
• 2016: Nashville, TN, USA
• 2018: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• 2022: Ottawa, Canada (updated)

Read about global rugby news

• Manchester will host the 2021 Youth Touch World Cup.
• Details confirmed for the 2021 RWC in NZ.
• Read about SEARR.Net (referees) volunteering in Asia.
• How did Coronavirus affect rugby in Asia in 2020?