FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SYDNEY CONVICTS TAKE TOP HONORS AT INTERNATIONAL GAY RUGBY TOURNAMENT

9/11 Hero’s Mother Presents Bingham Cup Held in Her Son’s Honor

New York, June 29 —

The Sydney Convicts Rugby Football Club took top honors on May28 at the 2006 Bingham

Cup hosted this year in New York City. Having traveled half-way around the

world from Australia to compete, the Convicts' victory against the San Francisco

Fog in the finals closed out the international gay rugby tournament held in honor of United Flight 93

hero Mark Bingham.

Alice Hoagland, mother of United Flight 93 hero and gay rugby player Mark Bingham, presented the grand prize on Randall's Island, the site of the tournament. More than 700 rugby players from teams around the world competed in 80 matches. Ms. Hoagland passed up screenings of United 93 at the Cannes Film Festival to attend the tournament. Instead, she presented the Cup named after her son to the winning team on Sunday. Players from teams all over the USA and from Canada, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Holland, and Australia, flew in for the tournament.

In addition to the presentation of the Cup, Boston Ironsides won the second division competition with a 3-0 overtime victory against the Dallas Diablos to take home the Bingham Bowl. The Sydney Convicts also won the third division by defeating a Worldwide Barbarians team by 26-7 to take home the Bingham Plate. In the first ever Bingham Cup women's rugby division, top honors went to the aptly named team from New York Rugby Club named "I Love Kuch," who bested the Scottsdale Lady Blues and a composite team to take the newly designated prize.

The Bingham Cup is the biennial international rugby competition named after Mark Bingham a hero of United Flight 93 on September 11, 2001. Bingham played for gay & bisexual rugby team the San Francisco Fog RFC after leading UC Berkeley to national championships. The Bingham Cup was first held in San Francisco in 2002 and in London in 2004. The 2006 Bingham Cup was hosted by the Gotham Knights Rugby Football Club, www.gothamrfc.org, a team Bingham was helping to found in 2001 before his untimely passing, and proceeds will benefit both college scholarships via the Mark Bingham Leadership Fund and the United 93 Memorial Fund.

For more information about the Bingham Cup, participating teams and match results go to