This weekend, more than 1,000 rugby players from 15 countries will come to Sydney to participate in the Bingham Cup.

The World Cup of Gay Rugby began in 2002 and is contested every two years.

The Sydney Convicts have won the championship three times and will be defending their title.

Alongside the 1,000 players will be special guest Alice Hoagland, the mother of Mark Bingham, after whom the tournament is named.

Bingham, an American gay rugby player, led the passenger revolt against the September 11 hijackers on the United Airlines flight that crashed in a Pennsylvania field killing all 44 on board.

Coming out

Ms Hoagland recounted how her adult son came out to her, saying: “’Mum, I promised myself I was going to tell you something before the sun went down. I'm gay."

"I was flabbergasted," said Ms Hoagland. "I wasn't particularly receptive.

Alice Hoagland, mother of September 11 hero Mark Bingham ( John Donegan )

"To my shame it took me a long time to accept that."

That shame turned to pride over the years.

"I'm proud of Mark and everyone involved in the Bingham Cup," Ms Hoagland told John Morrison on 702 ABC Sydney.

"I lost my son but gained 60 teams of rugby players," she laughed.

Mark Bingham, who stood at 194 centimetres and weighed in at 102 kilograms, played rugby while a student at the University of California, winning national championships.

After university he was instrumental in founding the San Francisco Fog Rugby Football Club, a gay-inclusive rugby union team.

Flight 93 home to San Francisco

Mark Bingham was 31-years-old when his expanding public relations business opened a New York office.

He was the last passenger to board United Airlines flight 93, returning to San Francisco for a friend's wedding.

"The phone rang at 6:44 in the morning," Ms Hoagland recounted. "'Mum, I just want to let you know I love you'."

The pilots had been murdered and the plane had been taken over by a group of hijackers led by Ziad Samir Jarrah.

Mark Bingham hatched a plan with fellow passengers Todd Beamer, Tom Burnett and Jeremy Glick, stormed the cockpit and overpowered the hijackers.

The actions of the group forced the plane down into a field and avoided the hijackers' intended target, believed to be the White House, and potentially saving many lives.

Mark Bingham was posthumously awarded the Arthur Ashe Courage Award in 2002. He is also remembered by the Eureka Valley Recreation Center which renamed the gymnasium The Mark Bingham Gymnasium, and by the University of California Alumni who present the Mark Bingham Award for Excellence in Achievement.

The Bingham Cup

The Mark Kendall Bingham Memorial Tournament was established in 2002 as a biennial international rugby union competition in his memory.

The 2014 Bingham Cup festivities kick off in Sydney on Sunday August 24, with a series of social functions, movie screenings, and a clinic with Wallaby players.

The on-field action will run for three days from August 29, starting with pool games played at Woollahra Colleagues in Rose Bay.