The winner of the first-ever Sperm Race has been crowned.
Yep, you read that right.
On Friday, two students set out to change the ‘sperm paradigm’ with a one-of-a-kind event where they raced their sperm in front of hundreds of people.
After a tense few moments where we watched their sperm under a microscope swim through a race, 20-year-old Tristan Milker was crowned champion.
The student of the University of Southern California (USC), went up against Asher Proeger, a 19-year-old of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to compete in the world’s first-ever sperm race.
The microscopic race, which was livestreamed, was held at LA Center Studios, a 20-acre campus known for hosting conventions and festivals.
Ahead of the event, one of the masterminds behind it all, Eric Zhu, 17, spoke of how he wants to change the ‘sperm paradigm’.
And Eric, behind the analytical platform Aviato, knew exactly how to do it: have two guys race their sperm in front of hundreds of people.
When was the sperm race?
Tickets sold out in less than 48 hours, Eric said, tallying about 4,000 people, only for organisers had to switch venues, refund the tickets, and resell them again.
The demand, however, only increased after the venue switch. At one point, there were 913 people on the waiting list. When it comes to venues, at least, size certainly matters.
(There was a VIP ticket, but we’re guessing it didn’t let you see the drivers getting ready for the race.)
Doors opened today at 6pm local time on Friday (2am Saturday in the UK). But before the men got their engines running, an ‘undercard’ race between influencers Noah Boat and Jimmy Zhang happened at 8.15pm.
The sperm count of men in Western countries has been steeply declining with no signs of ‘levelling off’ since 1973, a study found in 2017.
The team looked at the semen samples of nearly 43,000 men across 50 countries from 1973 to 2011. They found that the men’s sperm concentration – the number of sperm per millilitre of semen – had declined 52.4% in men from North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
While total sperm count fell 59.3% over the nearly 40-year period.
Sperm count is not the be-all, end-all of male fertility and overall health, health experts stress, though exactly why rates have dropped is unclear. Some suggest that sperm levels naturally rise and fall over time and within populations, while the researchers say stress, obesity and age are factors.
‘When people started talking about it, people were getting healthier when they got rid of cigarettes. And I think the same with sperm.’
‘In the last 50 years, not enough people have been talking about it.’
Eric said the project inspired him to get his semen count tested, and he hopes more people do the same.
‘We’re trying to bring this to the mainstream,’ Eric adds, ‘before it’s too late.’
good babe