One of the world’s most dangerous race events – where runners risk being impaled, or even killed – is underway in Spain, and it’s so popular that those attending are prepared to pay up to €1,000 (£862) a night for run-of-the-mill accommodation to attend.
The famous Pamplona bull-runs – dubbed ‘the mother of all Spanish fiestas’ – kicked off in the northern Spanish city earlier this week with the traditional San Fermin opening ceremony called the ‘Chupinazo’.
During the festival, thousands of locals and tourists wear traditional white outfits with a red bandana as they’re chased at breakneck speed by six fighting bulls.
The eight races, known as ‘encierro’, start at 8am sharp each morning, with festival ending on July 14th this year.
The dramatic half-mile run takes around three minutes, with thousands of participants dashing through the winding streets of Pamplona’s old town – with the bulls, who can weigh over 90 stone, in hot pursuit.
Anyone over 18 can join and you don’t need to register in advance but injuries are very common – with between 200 and 300 people needing medical help every year.
Since records began in 1910, sixteen people have been killed during the bull runs, which was made famous by 1926 Ernest Hemingway novel ‘The Sun Also Rises‘.
Six Pamplona bull-runners were rushed to hospital with injuries after being trampled by the rampaging animals on the first day of this year’s festival, according to El Pais.
Danger: Some 16 people have been killed since records began at the historic Pamplona bull races in Northern Spain
Hotel prices this year have shot up in the city – but occupancy is still at 90 per cent for the event, says the Pamplona Hotel Association
The event brings thousands of tourists to the city with prices rocketing for this year’s event – even for more basic accommodation.
The Pamplona Hotel Association, says El Pais, reports that tourist figures are currently sky high – in spite of rooms ranging from €500 (£430) to €1,000 (£826) per night.
The first three days of the festival saw hotels at 90 per cent occupancy, the Association said.
Those taking part in the festival – women have been able to ‘run’ since rules changed in 1974 – have been given leaflets published by the city advising of a zero tolerance approach to sexist attacks.
In 2018, a judge at a court in Navarra confirmed nine-year prison sentences for five men, nicknamed ‘The Wolf Pack’, after they were convicted of sexual assault at the event in 2016.
The bulls running on the first day, from the Fuente Ymbro farm in Spain’s south-west province of Cadiz, included one called Zalagarda which is the heaviest of this year’s bull runs and weighs in at a whopping 610 kilos which is 96 stone.
‘As usual, the straight stretch of this street was crowded with young men and a few young women, many of whom were run over, fell, and trampled by bulls and steers,’ reported El Pais.
The festival’s first 8am run this year, which lasted two minutes 37 seconds and ended with the animals being guided into pens after reaching the town’s bull ring, was the first of the eight encierros which form the highlight of the festival.
‘The mother of all Spanish fiestas’, Pamplona’s famous bull-run, takes place at 8am sharp every morning for eight days – with thousands of people being chased by six bulls, which can weigh up to 1,200kg
Sixteen people have been killed during the bull runs since 1925 at the annual festival, which finishes on July 14 and was made famous by 1926 Ernest Hemingway novel ‘The Sun Also Rises’
A tourist is toppled by a bull at this year’s event, with reports of injuries already in double figures with four days left to run
A participant is hit by a young cow in the bullring after the first ‘encierro’ (bull-run) of the San Fermin festival in Pamplona, northern Spain, on July 7, 2025
The other five casualties on the opening day included a 54-year-old man from New York. All six runners who needed hospital treatment were males.
Last year, a 37-year-old man from Beriain near Pamplona suffered the only gore injury, said to have been to his palate. And in 2023, six people were also left injured in the first race, none of them seriously, medics said at the time.
The most recent death was in 2009 when 27-year-old Daniel Jimeno, from Madrid, was gored in the neck by a bull called Capuchino.
Several foreign tourists, from Australians to Americans through to Brits and Irish, are normally among the injured.
The first of the eight encierros last year took place four hours after a San Fermin reveller collapsed and died. Police rushed to the scene and tried to save the 40-year-old man but were unable to resuscitate him.
Animal rights activists campaign against the festival every year, saying it is cruel to animals who are goaded and then killed in front of baying crowds.
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