Posts Tagged ‘pamplona’

ya llegan Originally uploaded by inthesitymad.

The encierro (running of the bulls) this morning in Pamplona’s San Fermín festival was a bit more violent than the others. They just announced on the news that one of the runners died after being gored in the neck. It was a pretty fast and crowded run, and one of the bulls (the smallest, at 550Kg or so) got a bit distracted and spent some time not running. There were another half a dozen serious injuries caused by the bulls’ horns (other injuries, of which there must be loads, mainly caused by falling over, are not reported as much). Nutters, the lot of them.

The whole run can be seen here…

What you don’t see in that link is the forty minutes of commentary afterwards, slow motion replays, commentators trying to identify if this guy or that guy had actually been gored or if the horns had missed him, the ambulance guys at work.

SAN FERMIN 2007 Originally uploaded by valischkas.

Bulls can slip really easily on cobbled streets.

You really don’t want to be anywhere near a bull when it slips.

You really don’t want to be anywhere near a bull trying to get back on its feet.

Some people have friends, others have people who throw them in the path of oncoming bulls to distract them.

You get live coverage of the running of the bulls on three channels

You get in depth analysis by an Alan Hansenalike wearing a red kerchief.

The in depth analysis usually is critical of the people who slip/fall/are pushed/get gored/are carried by the bull’s horns.

Bulls seem not to like the whole thing.

These people are crazy.