Bingham Cup organizers hailed the endorsement of the International Rugby Board (IRB) as an important breakthrough in inclusiveness in sport as the seventh version of the gay World Cup got under way yesterday.
While the rugby is the heart and soul of the tournament for the 30 clubs from 15 countries who have gathered in Sydney this week, the event has been leveraged by organizers to shine a spotlight on the issue of homophobia in sport.
The Australian Rugby Union (ARU) responded yesterday by becoming the first of the country’s rugby codes to implement a policy of inclusion and anti-homophobia, while IRB chief executive Brett Gosper sent a letter of support.
“It’s really groundbreaking due to the fact that no other professional international sporting organization has ever been so open about support for an event related to their LGBT athletes,” International Gay Rugby Association chairman Jeff Wilson said.
“It’s a real, true commitment to inclusion in sport and the elimination of homophobia at all levels of rugby. We hope to see other organizers of sport follow their example,” he added.
While the first match took place in heavy rain on a sodden pitch outside, Australia’s 1991 and 1999 World Cup-winning captains Nick Farr-Jones and John Eales addressed the opening news conference inside the Eastern Suburbs Rugby Club.
“We’ve always been proud of rugby because by its very nature, it’s an inclusive sport because it has a place for every size and shape of body,” Eales said. “We needed to extend that and make sure it had a space for every kind of person. That no matter what their interests or what their background was, rugby was a sport where they could come.”
Wilson said the work done by Bingham Cup president Andrew Purchas, a former teammate of Farr-Jones at the Sydney University club, in raising awareness of homophobia in the lead-up to the tournament had “raised the bar” for organizers.
The American, who would be in action later in the day for London’s Kings Cross Steelers, said getting rid of homophobia would also benefit rugby by preventing talented youngsters from being lost to the sport.
“We don’t want any kid to not play a sport because they don’t feel included because of their orientation,” Wilson added. “And by eliminating that subconscious bias and the active homophobic bullying that goes on, it makes rugby a better sport.”
While active homophobic bullying was still a major problem, more casual gay slurs were also preventing young people from becoming involved in team sports, according to Caroline Symons of Melbourne’s Victoria University.
Symons is helping coordinate an international survey, “Out in the Fields,” on the issue, with preliminary results from Australia indicating that 85 percent of gay people had witnessed homophobia in sport.
“The majority of homophobia is not directed at individuals,” she said. “Men in team sports that are not performing as well as they are supposed to are said to be ‘playing like a pack of girls, playing like a pack of poofs.’”
“It’s sexist and homophobic because the connotation is they’re weak, they’re underperforming, they’re not making the grade. That is still damaging to closeted gay people involved in team sports,” Symons said.
There was nothing weak about some of the collisions when the defending champions Sydney Convicts took on the Melbourne Chargers in an all-Australian grudge match yesterday morning.
Watching on the sidelines was Alice Hoagland, the mother of the former gay rugby player with the San Francisco Fog for whom the tournament was named, Mark Bingham.
Bingham was killed in Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on New York and Washington, when United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.
He is thought to have been among the handful of passengers who prevented the hijackers from reaching their target.
“The tragedy of Sept. 11 is eased in my mind somewhat by the fact I now have so many sons who are filled with the desire to carry the Bingham Cup forward,” Hoagland said.
“It’s the icing on the cake that they have come to Sydney, which is a remarkably inclusive city, to show the world what it means when gay men come together to play hard and come away victorious, or not, and are still able to tip a pint at the end of the game,” she added.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB