Category: News about the running of the bulls

Noticias sobre las fiestas de San Fermín.

Jason Gilbert Sunrise7 Yahoo!7

Jason Gilbert is recovering from his wounds in Australia

Australian Jason Gilbert is making a slow but favorable recovery at his home in Adelaide from the gorings he was given by the Miura bull, “Olivito” at the final Running of the Bulls of Sanfermin 2014. We were able to learn all the latest about his condition thanks to an exclusive interview he had with Samantha Armytage and David Koch on their morning TV show, Sunrise 7 from Yahoo!7 Television Channel in Australia. Gilbert stated that while he was taking part in the bullrunning event, he suddenly heard a very loud noise and then everything happened very fast and all he wanted to do was to get off the course and escape. “When the bull gored me the first time, it was a horrible sensation. Everything happened very fast, in four short seconds. And I feel that I was very lucky not to lose my life”, Jason Gilbert stated. He also said that he felt very grateful for the good attention he received both from the local people as well as from the Australian embassy over the three weeks that he spent in hospital in Pamplona. His mother was also present at the interview and she told the viewers about how she suffered during the whole process and how fortunate she feels she is to have her son at home again. To bring the interview to a close, the program’s pet (The Cash Cow) gave him some warm embraces.

Jason Gilbert lives on his father’s farm and the report from Sunrise 7 pointed out that he now looks on the breeding bull that belongs to the farm in a different light. He made it very clear that he will not push his luck by ever trying to run again in the Sanfermin Running of the Bulls. Gilbert showed the viewers the different wounds he received from the five gorings that the bull gave him and, at a quick glance, it is obvious that he has made a good recovery over the past month or more since the gorings took place.

On the video at Sanfermin.com we can appreciate the seriousness of the gorings and how lucky Jason was to escape from a worse fate. You can also see here some spectacular photos taken by Iñaki Vergara, Javier Campos and Juantxo Erce in a sequence of images of the whole incident.

lexflex freeman

Tossed when taking a “Selfie”

It had to happen….when you take part in a bullrunning and you have the bright idea of taking a “selfie” in the middle of it all, you will get caught by the bull sooner or later. In this case it happened at the Fiestas in Bayonne and luckily, the protagonist was just a steer and not a bull. As we can see from this video posted on YouTube by Lexflex Freeman the steer tossed the runner without causing any real damage when he was trying to take a selfie. When you try to take a selfie like that in the middle of a bullrunning you risk getting a goring and maybe be the cause of others getting one too. In this case, we don’t know if the runner was given a fine or not.


Imagen de YouTube de Lexflex Freeman

Meanwhile the runner who took a selfie in the Pamplona Running of the Bulls, during Sanfermin on the morning of the 11th of July in 2014 remains undiscovered. In the Pamplona Running of the Bulls there is now a City Hall ruling which prohibits taking selfies. But that particular runner seems to have got away with it, despite the efforts of the municipal police to track him down and force him to pay the fine. But the craze for selfies has spread and there seems to be no stopping it.

El tramo de Telefónica es el más concurrido en el encierro.

How many people take part in the Bullrunnings?

Since 2011 Pamplona City Hall is using the pertinent technology that allows the participants in the Running of the Bulls to be counted. In 2011, 20.500 runners in total took part in the eight Sanfermin running of the bulls this year. In 2014, the last year, two out of every three runners is taking part for the first time in their lives in the event and that some 56% of the participants each day are foreigners. See 2011 survey details.

The Running of the Bulls which was carried out by Pamplona City Hall and the figures tell us that two out of every three runners is taking part for the first time in their lives in the event and that some 56% of the participants each day are foreigners. This is the highest figure ever for foreigners up to now. The figure was 54% in 2012 and in 2013. In addition, the round figures for Sanfermin 2014 tell us:

-The participation in the Runnings of the Bulls was a total of 17,126 people. These figures register a drop of 4% compared to those of 2013, and a rather surprising drop compared to 2012 of some 17% (20, 669 runners in 2012, compared to 17,126 in 2014). This drop is due to the question of how the weekend dates fall in the opinion of City Hall.
-9, 590 were foreigners (56%) – and on the 9th of July this figure reached 70%.
-11, 477 of the runners took part for the first time in their lives.
-2014 saw the highest number of local runners getting injured in the past five years. (12). (counting as locals all the runners who reside in Navarra and that includes both runners who were gored or who suffered any other kind of injury which needed hospital treatment and registered by the Government of Navarra) 2013 (10), 2012 (10), 2011 (9) y 2010 (7).

In addition, it is possible to extract some further interesting figures and some that contradict the belief that a higher number of runners on the course means a higher risk: The Miura Running of the Bulls on the 14th, with 1.414 runners, registered the lowest number of runners of the whole week, and yet it turned out to be the most dangerous and with the highest number of injuries registered.The Running of the Bulls with the highest number of participants was registered on the Sunday, 13th of July with 2, 924 participants, but which showed the same number of injured as on the 8th and the 12th.

In spite of these figures there were several experienced runners who complained about over-crowding on the course being worse than ever. And this leads us to introduce a new concept in the statistics of The Running of the Bulls – the concept of concentrations of runners.

In 2014, an excessive number of runners seem to have gathered on two stretches of the course – namely, at the end of Estafeta and at the Telefónica stretch leading down into the bullring, according to comments from several runners. This new aspect will be analyzed in a later text.

Runners in the 2014 Running of the Bulls

Day Runners Time (minutes)
 Bull Ranch
Monday 7th 2.483 2,25 min Torrestrella
Tuesday 8th 2.506 2,31 min Dolores Aguirre
Wednesday 9th 1.822 3,30 min Victoriano del Río
Thursday 10th 1.927 2, 30 min Garcigrande
Friday 11th 1.825 2,27 min Jandilla
Saturday12th 2.225 2,49 min Fuente Ymbro
Sunday 13th 2.924 2,52 min Adolfo Martín
Monday 14th 1.414 4,57 min Miura

The procedure of the counting of the runners was explained by Pamplona City Hall as follows: “The figures reached on the runners arise from an examination and count of the photos and video cameras located along the length of the course and taken by the Municipal Police just minutes before the start of each day’s bullrunning.”

Origins.  56% of the runners from this year’s Sanfermin bullrunnings were foreign:

-North-American (24%)
-Australians or New-Zealanders (11%)
-British (4%)
-French (2, 5%)
-Latin-Americans (2, 5%)

According to the surveys carried out by Pamplona City hall, 739 runners (8% of the total) of The Running of the Bulls were from Pamplona, and 6% from other parts of Navarra and some 30% were of Spanish nationality. For sanfermin.com 14 % were locals.

cornada día 14 julio

There are no more injured runners remaining in hospital

J.G., The 26-year-old Australian runner who was gored in the The Miura Running of the Bulls on 14th of July has finally been discharged from the Navarra Public Hospital Complex, according to a press release issued today at 13.00 hours.

The runner had been admitted to hospital suffering from three gorings; one to his left thigh, another to his abdomen and a third to his thorax and he has now been discharged after being hospitalized for the past 18 days. J.G. is the final runner to leave hospital this year from the total of 43 who were admitted for treatment from the 2014 Running of the Bulls.

To see the full sequence of the images of the goring suffered by J.G., click here   .

Mikel Ciáurriz

Bill Hillmann apologizes for blaming two British runners for his goring

On the 9th of July, American-writer Bill Hillmann was gored during the Running of the Bulls with the Victoriano del Río bull-ranch. More particularly, he received the goring from a loose bull by the name of “Brevito” which had been left behind on the course by the rest of the pack. The incident had quite a lot of media impact, not just for being one of just two gorings which took place that day but also because this writer is the author of a book about the Pamplona Running of the Bulls entitled: “How to survive the Pamplona Running of the Bulls”.

Yesterday, Hillmann himself, who regularly writes Facebook posts, wrote about the goring incident of the 9th of July and about the Sanfermin Running of the Bulls in general, and managed to raise some controversy among his followers with his publication. In his article, he blames two British runners, who were wearing similar blue T-shirts, of being the cause of his suffering the goring because they blocked his way and forced him to fall to the ground, at the final stretch leading into the bullring, where he was then gored by the bull. “They got in my way when I was leading the bull towards the entrance to the bullring and one of them pushed me hard so that I fell on my back to the ground”.

One of his readers, however, subsequently accused him of being malicious in his accusation and took a different view of the whole matter. This comment raised a lot of controversy and provoked several different comments from readers and even from Hillmann himself, which only served to stir things up even more.

In view of the growing controversy, the American writer wished to clarify himself by stating that it was not his intention to attack these runners, but simply to point out that they were clearly rookie runners who, on seeing the bull coming up close behind them, panicked and reacted from an instinct of survival. And he went on to say that he did not wish to discuss the incident any further until he felt more objective about the whole issue: “I admit that I went too far in attacking them. I shouldn’t have done it. I am not going to discuss the question any further until I feel more calmed down and objective about the whole thing.”

A few hours later and feeling more objective about the whole thing, Bill Hillmann wrote a new post up and made a clear apology and closed the controversy by stating: “I had earlier written out of anger and indignation. I regret that. I do not blame anybody in any way for what happened to me. During the Running of the Bulls there are always moments of panic and high tension and nobody is to blame for that”.

To learn the full story, you can follow it up at Bill Hillmann’s Facebook.

sanfermin 2014 fiesta

More than 500 million impacts on Twitter during Sanfermin 2014

A total of 501.491, 453 visualizations and 163.762, 078 million accounts reached by these impacts are what was generated by the fiestas in Sanfermin 2014, according to data offered by Tweetbinder to Pamplona City Hall.

Most of the twits sent (149, 284) had audiovisual content, both photos and links to images, and the Running of the Bulls was once again the main protagonist of the highest number of twits generated, with 186.509, 627 impacts. The language used to twit was principally Spanish, followed by English in a rather distant second place.

As for the hashtags or labels, the most used were #SanFermin2014, at 43%, and #encierro/#encierros, at 21%, while the hashtag proposed by Pamplona City Hall, #SF14, was the least used.

Just one remaining patient in hospital from the Running of the Bulls

The american runner who got injured on the 8th of July, with the initials, T.H., was yesterday discharged from hospital. This runner had suffered severe contusion to his thorax area and he also suffered multiple fractured ribs in the second Running of the Bulls. Consequently, the only remaining patient is the Australian runner who was gored by one of the Miura bulls on the 14th of July in the final Running of the Bulls of Sanfermin 2014. His condition is stable in the orthopedic unit of the hospital but no date has yet been fixed for his discharge

Primer premio: Pablo Lasaosa Vidal

The First San Fermín International Photography Competition has some winners

The first edition of The First San Fermín International Photography Competition has had some winners and some finalists selected. Some 398 photos were submitted from between 106 participants, and Luminosos Arga Digital is already planning a new theme for next year given the great success that the competition has had among the general public.

Most of the participants were photographers from Navarra, but there were also some entries submitted from Barcelona, Madrid, Asturias, Valencia, Jaen, Burgos, Vizcaya, Zamora, Malaga, Pontevedra, Castellón, Alicante, Lérida and Guipuzkoa, and several participants from Portugal and Canada.

The winners are Pablo Lasaosa Vidal, Amadeo Urdiain Navas and Fernando Eguiluz Lekunberri.

The finalists are Montxo A.G., Iñigo Aranguren, Carlos de Cos Azcona, Fernando Lezaun, David Salcedo, Álvaro Martínez Fernández and Kike Balenzategui.

Congratulations everyone!

encierros de Pamplona

A historic record number of foreigners in The Running of the Bulls with some 56% each day and just 14% locals

Photo: Carlos Mediavilla

Today, we have learned the result of the survey about The Running of the Bulls which was carried out by Pamplona City Hall and the figures tell us that two out of every three runners is taking part for the first time in their lives in the event and that some 56% of the participants each day are foreigners. This is the highest figure ever for foreigners up to now. The figure was 54% in 2012 and in 2013. In addition, the round figures for Sanfermin 2014 tell us:

– The participation in the Runnings of the Bulls was a total of 17,126 people. These figures register a drop of 4% compared to those of 2013, and a rather surprising drop compared to 2012 of some 17% (20, 669 runners in 2012, compared to 17,126 in 2014). This drop is due to the question of how the weekend dates fall in the opinion of City Hall.
-9, 590 were foreigners (56%) – and on the 9th of July this figure reached 70%.
-11, 477 of the runners took part for the first time in their lives.
-2014 saw the highest number of local runners getting injured in the past five years. (12). (counting as locals all the runners who reside in Navarra and that includes both runners who were gored or who suffered any other kind of injury which needed hospital treatment and registered by the Government of Navarra) 2013 (10), 2012 (10), 2011 (9) y 2010 (7).

In addition, it is possible to extract some further interesting figures and some that contradict the belief that a higher number of runners on the course means a higher risk: The Miura Running of the Bulls on the 14th, with 1.414 runners, registered the lowest number of runners of the whole week, and yet it turned out to be the most dangerous and with the highest number of injuries registered. The Running of the Bulls with the highest number of participants was registered on the Sunday, 13th of July with 2, 924 participants, but which showed the same number of injured as on the 8th and the 12th.

In spite of these figures there were several experienced runners who complained about over-crowding on the course being worse than ever. And this leads us to introduce a new concept in the statistics of The Running of the Bulls – the concept of concentrations of runners. In 2014, an excessive number of runners seem to have gathered on two stretches of the course – namely, at the end of Estafeta and at the Telefónica stretch leading down into the bullring, according to comments from several runners. This new aspect will be analyzed in a later text.

Runners in the 2014 Running of the Bulls

2014
Día Nº de corredores Duración Ganadería
7 lunes 2483 2,25 min Torrestrella
8 martes 2506 2,31 min Dolores Aguirre
9 miércoles 1822 3,30 min Victoriano del Río
10 jueves 1927 2, 30 min Garcigrande
11 viernes 1825 2,27 min Jandilla
12 sábado 2225 2,49 min Fuente Ymbro
13 domingo 2924 2,52 min Adolfo Martín
14 lunes 1414 4,57 min Miura

The procedure of the counting of the runners was explained by Pamplona City Hall as follows: “The figures reached on the runners arise from an examination and count of the photos and video cameras located along the length of the course and taken by the Municipal Police just minutes before the start of each day’s bullrunning.”

Origins:

56% of the runners from this year’s Sanfermin bullrunnings were foreign:
– North-American (24%),
– Australians or New-Zealanders (11%)
– British (4%),
– French (2, 5%)
– Latin-Americans (2, 5%)

According to the surveys carried out by Pamplona City hall, 739 runners (8% of the total) of The Running of the Bulls were from Pamplona, and 6% from other parts of Navarra and some 30% were of Spanish nationality. For sanfermin.com 14 % were locals.

Programación de Sanfermin RTVE

A historic record of TV share is reached with the bullrunning broadcasts of 2014

The 2014 bullrunnings broadcast by national television, RTVE, turned out to be the second-most watched Running of the Bulls ever recorded, only surpassed by those of 2010, and they set some new historical figures for the small screen. The average figures for the broadcasts from Channel 1 plus Canal 24 horas Channel were 1.741.000 viewers and 73,6% of the share, which works out at 78.000 more people and 2,9 more points than in 2013. The 2014 Runnings of the Bulls were the first ever to be broadcast in high definition and they had some new camera locations such as the zip-line camera above Estafeta set up by the Navarra company, FilmXtreme.

There is still room for growth as far as viewers figures go for The Running of the Bulls because it should be remembered that in 2008, with broadcasts made from two separate channels – RTVE and the CUATRO private channel, each with their own signals, the total viewing figure reached a total of 8, 2 million viewers, a figure which has never been bettered since (2014, 4.651.000 viewers). See article at Sanfermin.com about viewers with both broadcasts.

Viewer’s figures increased this year for both Channel TVE1 as well as for the Canal 24 horas Channel. According to a statement from RTVE, the public TV reached “in Channel 1an average of 1.592.000 viewers (39.000 more than 2013) and 67,2% (1,2 points more),while for the Canal 24 Horas Channel they reached an average of 150.000 viewers (110.000 in 2013) and a 6,3% of share (1,6 points more), thei rbest historic results.”

The most-viewed Running of the bulls was the one broadcast on Tuesday, 8th of July, with the Dolores Aguirre bull-ranch which had 1.975.000 viewers on both Channel l and the 24 Horas Channel. The top share figures were reached on Sunday, 13th of July, with the Adolfo Martín bull-ranch, with 79% of the total share between channel 1 and the 24 Horas channel.

The figures for Navarra are impressive with an average of 139.000 viewers, 12.000 more than in 2013, and a share percentage of 99, 2%. There were some bullrunnings with a 100% of the viewers watching the event, something which does not happen even with the most popular football games.

In addition, the special daily broadcast, ‘Vive San Fermín’, presented by Elena S. Sánchez and Javier Solano, achieved a daily average of 892, 000 viewers and 54, 8% of the share between Channel 1 and Canal 24 Horas Channel. Up to 7. 821, 000 viewers saw some of the San Fermín broadcasts, including the Chupinazo Opening rocket.

As for the Internet web, 1.143, 000 single users made some kind of contact about Sanfermines content at RTVE.es. 27, 7% through the cell phone; 11, 1% through the Tablet; 61, 2% through other applications. The live web reports had 426, 000 single users and the multi-camera – which allowed the user to manipulate the broadcast to his own taste – 212.000.