Updated
Updated · CBC Sports · Jul 9
Pamplona Releases 6 Bulls Daily on 850-Meter Run as San Fermín Draws 1 Million Visitors
Updated
Updated · CBC Sports · Jul 9

Pamplona Releases 6 Bulls Daily on 850-Meter Run as San Fermín Draws 1 Million Visitors

3 articles · Updated · CBC Sports · Jul 9

Summary

  • Six bulls charge through Pamplona at 8 a.m. each day for eight days, covering an 850-meter old-town route as runners try to stay close without being gored.
  • 2026 marks 100 years since Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises was published, a milestone that helped keep San Fermín globally famous and a bucket-list trip for foreign visitors.
  • Pamplona, a city of about 200,000, receives more than 1 million extra people for the festival, which also includes parades, music, religious ceremonies and all-night street parties.
  • The spectacle still carries risks and criticism: 16 people have died in the festival’s history, the last in 2009, while animal-rights groups protest the later bullfights in which the bulls are killed.

Insights

As public opinion turns against bullfighting, is Hemingway's famous festival facing its final chapter?
A century after Hemingway, has his gift of fame to Pamplona become a controversial curse?