THE GREAT SPERM RACE

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Released in 2009, The Great Sperm Race was a television documentary film involving a race between 250 million competitors with one winner - see photo above.

However, on 25 April, the world's first organised human sperm race will take place at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles. Obviously there's millions and millions of such sperm races every day and night when men and women have sex together, but this sperm race will be the first one organised so that people can watch the race live.

At the race, two spermatozoa, each measuring 0.05 millimetres long, will be released at the starting line of a racetrack measuring 200 millimetres (20 centimetres), to race each other to the finishing line. The microscopic racetrack is modelled on a woman's reproductive system.

Given the average speed of human sperm is about 5 millimetres a minute, the race may last up to an hour. It all depends how fit those sperm are!

It's expected that the venue will be sold out for the sperm race. As well as 5,000 spectators, the race will be live-streamed.

The race will be organised like a major sporting event. There will be press conferences, betting opportunities, live commentary, action replays, a leaderboard, and race statistics.

Sperm Racing raised $1 million (about £750,000) to organise the race. The event is designed to promote awareness of declining male fertility. Generally, both the quantity and quality of a man's sperm are dwindling.

Though a healthy male on average releases about 200 million spermatozoa on ejaculation, the fastest sperm isn't necessarily the best sperm to fertilise a woman's egg.

As a slight aside, it's estimated that the winning sperm takes between 15 and 45 minutes to reach a woman's egg. The speed of sperm is very much determined by the sperm's tail, its flagellum. About 300 years ago, the Dutch microbiologist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek described human sperm as having a "tail, which, when swimming, lashes with a snakelike movement, like eels in the water."

But a study conducted a few years ago by a Brazilian-born mathematician, Hermes Gadelha, found that van Leeuwenhoek's observation was an optical illusion. He said: "human sperm figured out if they roll as they swim, much like playful otters corkscrewing through water, their one-sided stroke would average itself out, and they would swim forwards."

So when you're next thinking about sperm, don't think of snake-like eels but think of cute otters instead!

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