US students 'race' sperm in reproductive health stunt

A COMMENTATOR yells excitedly as hundreds of spectators stand glued to a video of a racecourse — but the athletes they are rooting for are actually tiny sperm cells.

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The unusual sport was invented by 17-year-old high schooler Eric Zhu, who raised over a million dollars to organise the event to call attention to male infertility.

Zhu said he was inspired by social media posts that claim average sperm counts had halved over the past 50 years.

Fearing that “there could be this dystopian future where no one will be able to make babies,” Zhu said he wanted to use the competition to highlight the importance of reproductive health.

Scientists have not reached a consensus on whether humanity has experienced a dramatic drop in sperm count, with studies showing conflict-ing results.

At a Los Angeles event recently, a man in a lab coat used pipettes to place samples of semen - collected from contestants ahead of time - onto tiny two-millimetre-long “tracks”.