Four gored during Pamplona bull run in Spain

PAMPLONA, Spain - A French man running with Pamplona's fighting bulls was gored in the mouth on Saturday and three others were injured in the legs and buttocks by the bulls, officials said.

It was the first day that people had been gored by the bulls since the festival, made famous by Ernest Hemingway, opened on Thursday.

The six bulls sent thrill-seekers from all over the world tumbling and leaping over the protective barriers in the July 7 to 14 bull running, part of Pamplona's San Fermin festival.

Hemingway's 1920s novel "The Sun Also Rises" made the fiesta famous and hundreds of Americans and Australians come each year. Fifteen people have died running with the bulls in Pamplona since 1910, most from gorings.

A 24-year-old man, who declined to tell medics where he was from, was seriously gored in the backside and thigh, a festival spokesman said. French man Andre Lailheugue, 50, received a 5 cm wound, which the hospital said was in his face and the Red Cross said had sliced his mouth.

A 46-year-old local man, Juan Carlos Labalde, was gored in the leg and another man in the buttock, the spokesman said.

Two other Spaniards were taken to hospital, one for a dislocated shoulder and another with back injuries.

Each morning a firecracker sounds and the six half tonne bulls are released onto an 825m course to the bull ring through the cobbled streets. Authorities estimate some 2,000 to 3,000 people cram together to run with the bulls, which are killed in an evening fight.

- REUTERS