PAMPLONA, SPAIN (AP) – Six people were treated for injuries but initial reports said there were no gorings in the seventh running of the bulls at Spain´s San Fermín festival yesterday.
There were many hairy moments in the two-minute dash through the cobblestone streets of Pamplona. Shortly into the race, one bull twice head-butted a runner before tossing him to the ground where he was trampled by other beasts and frantic runners.
In the bull ring, at the end of the run, another runner who had fallen and tried to get to his feet was surprised by a charging bull who butted him into the air.
Four people in all have been gored, none seriously, during the festival’s seven runs bull-runs so far this year.
In the 8am runs, hundreds of runners, mostly men, test their mettle to run like mad ahead and alongside six fighting bulls and their guiding steer as they charge along an 875-metre route through Pamplona to the city’s bullring, where later in the day the bulls are killed by professional bullfighters.
Tens of thousands of visitors attend the Pamplona festival, which was immortalised in Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises.
Eight people were gored in 2019, the last festival before the pandemic. Sixteen people have died in Pamplona’s bull runs since 1910, with the last death in 2009.
