PAMPLONA, Spain (AP) – The third bull run of Pamplona’s San Fermín Festival ended Saturday with the event’s first gorings of the year.
Two men were injured in the leg by a bull horn, Pamplona hospital spokesperson Estrella Petrina said. A total of seven people needed to be treated at the hospital following Saturday’s running of the bulls.
PAMPLONA, SPAIN – JULY 09: Revellers run with Jose Escolar Gil’s fighting bulls along Curva Mercaderes during the fourth day of the San Fermin Running of the Bulls festival on July 09, 2022 in Pamplona, Spain. The iconic Spanish festival has resumed in earnest this year after being twice cancelled due to COVID-19. (Photo by Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images)
Thousands of runners, most wearing the traditional white shirt and pants with red sash and neckerchief, scampered to avoid the charging animals. Many ended up piled on top of each other in the narrow cobblestone streets of the course.
PAMPLONA, SPAIN – JULY 09: A reveller is kicked by a Jose Escolar Gil’s fighting bull as they run along Calle Estafeta during the fourth day of the San Fermin Running of the Bulls festival on July 09, 2022 in Pamplona, Spain. The iconic Spanish festival has resumed in earnest this year after being twice cancelled due to Covid-19. (Photo by Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images)
The incredibly popular Pamplona festival, which was made known to the English-speaking world through Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises, draws tens of thousands of visitors from around the world.
PAMPLONA, SPAIN – JULY 09: Revellers fall to the ground as they run with Jose Escolar Gil’s fighting bulls along Calle Estafeta during the fourth day of the San Fermin Running of the Bulls festival on July 09, 2022 in Pamplona, Spain. The iconic Spanish festival has resumed in earnest this year after being twice cancelled due to Covid-19. (Photo by Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images)
Eight people were gored in 2019, the last festival before a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sixteen people have died in Pamplona’s bull runs since 1910, with the last death in 2009.
Saturday’s bull run was the third of eight scheduled this year. There were no gorings on the first two days.
The Pamplona festival is loathed by animal rights activists, with PETA UK branding both the bull runs and subsequent bullfights as “a spectacle of cruelty” in which dozens of cattle are “tortured and killed” after a “long, stressful journey” to the city.
A participant receives medical attention after being injured during the “encierro” (bull-run) of the San Fermin festival in Pamplona, northern Spain on July 9, 2022. On each day of the festival six bulls are released at 8:00 a.m. (0600 GMT) to run from their corral through the narrow, cobbled streets of the old town over an 850-meter (yard) course. Ahead of them are the runners, who try to stay close to the bulls without falling over or being gored. (Photo by MIGUEL RIOPA/AFP via Getty Images)
The collective adrenaline rush of the bull run is followed by general hedonism with people drinking, eating, attending concerts and partying late into the night.
The six bulls that run each morning are killed in bullfights by professional bullfighters later in the day.
PAMPLONA, SPAIN – JULY 09: Medical staff treat an injured runner after the running of the bulls with Jose Escolar Gil’s fighting bulls at Curva Mercaderes during the fourth day of the San Fermin Running of the Bulls festival on July 09, 2022 in Pamplona, Spain. The iconic Spanish festival has resumed in earnest this year after being twice cancelled due to COVID-19. (Photo by Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images)
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