Rio Olympian will have sperm frozen due to Zika fears

Olympic long jump champion Greg Rutherford is headed to Rio de Janeiro this summer in search of a second straight gold medal. But he won't board a plane to Brazil from his native Great Britain without taking a unique precaution.

Due to uncertainty surrounding the Zika virus, Rutherford will have a sample of his sperm frozen and stored away, according to his partner, Susie Verrill.

"We'd love to have more children and with research in its infancy, I wouldn't want to put myself in a situation which could have been prevented," Verrill wrote in Standard Issue magazine.

Verrill and the couple's son, Milo, have also made the decision to forgo the trip to Brazil and watch from home.

"Specialists still also don't know the ins and outs of Zika," Verrill wrote, "so even though it looks as though there's no real issues should Milo get bitten, it's just another thing we don't want to chance."

The spread of Zika, a virus transmitted by mosquitos, has prompted flurries of questions about holding the games in Rio. Health experts have called for the postponement or relocation of the games, though the World Health Organization declared last month that that would be unjustified.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Zika can be transmitted sexually, and Brazilian officials have found that the increasing prevalence of Zika has corresponded with a rise in the number of babies born with microcephaly, a birth defect where babies have smaller brains than normal.

American cyclist Tejay van Garderen, whose wife is pregnant, chose last week to skip the Olympics due to Zika concerns. He is one of multiple athletes to make similar decisions. Many other Olympic stars, including Americans Hope Solo and Serena Williams, have voiced their concerns as well.

The 29-year-old Rutherford, however, is the first known case of an Olympic athlete freezing his sperm.

The WHO's Emergency Committee on Zika will meet again next week to review the latest research on Zika and the potential effects of the virus on the Olympics, which begin Aug. 5.