Three Americans were among the seven people gored by bulls Friday during Spain’s San Fermin festival in Pamplona.
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The run has been criticised for lasting almost six minutes, more than double the usual running time. Revelers from around the world come to Pamplona every year to take part in the eight days of the running of the bulls.
The Running of the Bulls (in Spanish: encierro, from the verb encerrar, “to corral, to enclose”) is a practice that involves running in front of a small group of cattle, typically six, of the toro bravo breed that have been let loose on a course of a sectioned-off subset of a town’s streets.
Participants run ahead Jose Escolar Gil’s fighting bulls on the third day of the San Fermin bull run festival in Pamplona, northern Spain on July 9, 2016.
Spanish bullfighter Miguel Abellan performs with a Fuente Ymbro ranch fighting bull during a bullfight of the 2016 San Fermin fiestas in Pamplona, Spain, Thursday, July 7, 2016. Although no deaths have been reported this year, the running of the bulls has seen at least 16 people lose their lives since its inception in 1911.
The 28-year-old died after a bull’s horn pierced his lung and heart during a run in the southeastern village of Pedreguer near Valencia, a spokesman for the regional government said on Saturday. The festival website lists the Canadian, with the initials P.C.O., in serious condition in a local hospital.
The nationality of the suspects was not clear but a protest march against the assault was planned for Thursday evening.
The San Fermin fiesta was made famous by American writer Ernest Hemingway in his 1926 novel The Sun also Rises.
Dramatic TV images showed two half-ton bulls attacking runners after becoming separated from the pack as it sprinted through the streets of Pamplona in northern Spain.
Ten were gored in last year’s festival.
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Over the past century 15 people have died in the event, which dates back hundreds of years, according to a count on the unofficial San Fermin website.
