Four people were hospitalised on the first day of Spain’s San Fermin bull run, a daily race through the narrow, cobbled streets of Pamplona that forms part of the northern city’s week-long festival.
One runner was gored in the thigh while the other three suffered fractures during the race against five bulls which lasted 2 minutes and 25 seconds.
The bull run at San Fermin — made famous by Mr Ernest Hemingway in his novel The Sun Also Rises — is one of the hundreds in Spain every year and attracts large numbers of foreign visitors. Runners dress in white with red neckerchiefs and many spectators stay up drinking all night in bars beforehand.
The “Chupinazo” run takes place a day before the first of eight 8 a.m. bull runs, in which daredevils test their speed and bravery by racing with six fighting bulls along an 850-meter street course to the bull ring.