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128 Men Are Competing for $100K in the Sperm Racing World Cup

A new study suggests the supposed cognitive gap between Neanderthals and modern humans may have been wildly overstated.

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The global male fertility crisis has been declining for decades, and nobody’s really paying attention. So four tech entrepreneurs decided to turn it into a sporting event with a $100,000 prize and see if that gets people talking.

The 2026 Sperm Racing World Cup is a real thing happening in San Francisco next month. Tech entrepreneurs Eric Zhu, Garret Niconienko, Nick Small, and Shane Fan built it, and the premise is exactly what it sounds like. One hundred and twenty-eight men, each representing a different country, submit semen samples that get raced against each other on a microscopic track. The fastest swimmer wins $100,000 for their owner.

The event has already drawn more than 10,000 applicants from........

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