The cleanest running of the bulls of the past decade

2008-07-14. The 2008 runnings of the bulls have turned out to be the cleanest and calmest of the past decade, with only four injuries from the horns of the bull and forty-one runners more needing hospital treatment

The 2008 Sanfermin fiestas come to an end today, and although there are quite a few hours yet before the Pobre de Mi, it is time to make toll of all that has gone on over the past nine days.

With regard to this year's running of the bulls, it may be concluded that seen the cleanest and calmest runnings of the past decade, as only a total of four runners received a goring and another forty-one with diverse injuries and wounds needed hospital treatment. We would need to go back to the Sanfermin fiestas of 1998 to find lower figures. That year there were only three runners gored in all.

Three of the bull-breeds that have earned a name for being dangerous - the Jandilla, Dolores Aguirre and Nuñez del Cuvillo did not respond this year to those expectations and the bulls all behaved nobly with trying to charge and threaten the runners with their horns. Only the Dolores Aguirre bulls that ran on Saturday the 12th of July, gored one runner despite the massive number of runners on the course that day. And along with these bulls, the other three bull-ranches also gored just one runner each; the Cebada Gago, The Fuente Ymbro and the Ventorrillo bulls, who made their debut this year in Pamplona. The four runners who received a goring did so on different days; a 31 year-old from Bilbao, a 28 year-old from Valladolid, 22 year-old Californian and a 26 year-old Colombian.

Of the four runners who suffered a goring, only the man from Bilbao, who was gored by a Cebada Gago on the 8th of July, has been discharged from hospital. The other three, along with another four runners, including the five treated today, remain hospitalized either in The Virgen del Camino hospital or The Hospital de Navarra.

Further information can be found in our section of the injured.