Eli5: Would any of the 250 million sperm I outraced into existence, have been, in any meaningful way different different than I turned out?

Question

We often hear the metaphor, “out of the millions of sperm, you won the race!” Or something along those lines. But since the sperm are caring copies of the same genetic material, wouldn’t any of them have turned out to be me?

(Excluding abiotic factors, of course)

In: Biology

Answer 1

Technically you don’t outrace all the sperm. Scientist recently found out that the sperm that get their first break down the layer of the egg until eventually a sperm cell can break through. So really, you were more like middle place