International

The blood and the gore

Spain’s running of the bulls begins in Pamplona

— Photo: AP

On the run: Revellers are chased by a bull during the San Fermin Festival in Pamplona, northern Spain on Saturday.

PAMPLONA: The running of the bulls, a most Spanish of celebrations, combining massive bulls and huge doses of adrenaline mixed with equally generous lashings of alcohol, got under way on Saturday.

An Australian was gored in the lower right buttock, and another runner, a Spaniard from Navarra, suffered a shoulder injury. Both were evacuated by ambulance.

“Injuries have been relatively light,” said an emergency work coordinator. Altogether, seven people were treated for injuries, mostly cuts and bruises.

The number of revellers swelled this year because the traditional start day, July 7, fell on a weekend. Last year, over 200,000 tourists visited Pamplona, according to the city government. Numbers this year are likely to exceed that, said a spokeswoman.

“I stayed up all night drinking. Thank God for espresso,” said Matthew Genovese, 25, from Connecticut, in Pamplona for the first time.

Last year an American man, 31-year-old Ray Ducharme, was thrown by a young cow in an event at the bullring following the first run. He underwent a 90-minute operation at the Hospital de Navarra to reattach two vertebrae.

“They don’t know what they’re doing; bulls can kill,” said Ruben Munoz, 24, from Madrid, who has run with the bulls during each of the last five years. “I do it for the adrenaline and because I feel liberated.”

The start of the run, normally at 8 a.m., was delayed by six minutes because police were still clearing the streets of debris and drunken crowds packing the streets after dawn. The bulls, which are kept in an enclosure just outside the town centre, are run daily during the San Fermin Festival to Pamplona’s central bullring.

Each of the nine days of San Fermin features bulls from a different breeder. This year the festival began with six bulls from Dolores Aguirre. The lightest weighed 550 kg and the heaviest 615 kg.

Injuries are common as the crowds strive to keep ahead of the bulls in narrow streets. Since records began in 1924, 13 people have been killed. The last fatality, a 22-year-old American, was gored to death in 1995.

The San Fermin Festival dates back to the late 16th century but gained worldwide fame in Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises. — AP

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu