Eight people have been taken to hospital, mainly for bruising and concussion, on the first day of the annual bull running festival in the northern Spanish town of Pamplona today.
Three people had concussion, one had chest injuries, three suffered bruising and one was grazed by a bull's horn. No details were available as to the seriousness of the injuries, but no one was gored.
The San Fermin running of the bulls is a long tradition. It was made famous by Ernest Hemingway's novel The Sun Also Rises, a semi-autobiographical account of an alcohol-fuelled visit to the festival by a group of squabbling British and American friends in the 1920s.
The bulls are usually killed later by bullfighters.
Dozens of semi-naked animal rights activists held a protest in Pamplona on Saturday by lying on the ground along the course of the bull running, with imitation barbs - usually plunged into the shoulders of bulls at the start of a bullfight - stuck to their own shoulders.
