Spring-balls: South Africa’s rugby stars go “nude” in campaign towards creating awareness about testicular cancer [Photos]

Members of South Africa’s Springboks – the national rugby team – have stripped down as they join a campaign aimed at creating awareness about the dangers of testicular cancer.

The rugby heroes, off the back of their victory at the Rugby World Cup, are using their newfound influence to encourage men to check their testicles in order to improve the survival rate of the disease.

The challenge, in collaboration with the pharmaceutical company, Cipla South Africa, offers young adults guidelines on how to examine their privates for unusual lumps in the testicles. It also provides a fact sheet on testicular cancer.

Faf de Klerk, who was famous for celebrating their England victory in underwear, threw the challenge to his teammates.

He tweeted, the #FafChallenge is to get men “ballsy enough to check on their crown jewels” for signs of testicular cancer.

Shortly after dragging his teammates into the challenge, team captain, Siya Kolisi, Makazole Mapimpi, Cheslin Kolbe, Damien de Allende, Malcolm Marx, and Jesse Kriel have all posted images of themselves in their colorful South African speedos.

Speaking after the campaign generated the social media buzz, a spokesperson for Cipla South Africa, told the media that, “they were hoping for the same talkability about these important self-checks that women had established about regular breast checks.”

Cancer.org reports that 9, 560 new cases of testicular cancer have been diagnosed in the U.S. – out of which 410 persons have lost their lives.

In a relative study conducted by the Victoria Cortessis, Assistant professor at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine, said testicular cancer is on the rise, especially in young men who smoke marijuana.

Researchers found that those men who smoked marijuana were twice as likely to have been diagnosed with testicular germ cell tumors. Germ cell tumors are the most common form of testicular cancer in men below the age of 35.

The study also found that those men diagnosed with testicular cancer who smoked marijuana had more aggressive, harder to treat tumors.

This is one of three studies that have identified a link between marijuana use and testicular cancer risk. No other studies have been able to disprove the findings.

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