RUN!

SAN Fermin is back once again and madder than ever.

The scenes in Pamplona on the eve of the festival were a sight to behold as the main square and every single balcony were packed with cheering sanfermineros. There was not an inch to move among

This year’s brave - or barmy - San Fermin participants take their turns to run with the bulls

a sea of red scarves as the president of Osasuna, Pamplona’s football club, gave the opening address from a balcony.

The festival is running until Saturday the following week.

Each morning at 8am six fighting bulls are released along with four oxen to run the 825 metres route from the Corrales de Santo Domingo to Pamplona’s Plaza de Toros. So far the escapades have already seen 26 runners hurt at the time of writing. Here are some of the best pics of the action so far…

To kick things off, visitors wearing the traditional San Fermin white t-shirt and red handkerchief eagerly crowd around the gates where the bulls are being released. Eager participants hold their hand out in hopes of touching the bulls as they run past.

A bull runner doesn't dare look back as a bull barrels toward him. It is virtually impossible to run the whole 850 metres of the encierro. Instead, participants choose a section of it when the bulls are threateningly close and then run for their lives to stay in front of the horns.

Some fiesta-goers walk a pedestrian 'car' through the crowded streets of Pamplona. For San Fermin, the roads shut down and the fiesta pours out from every corner. The festivities are non-stop from sun-up to sun-down for seven days in July.

Taking rather a lot of care, participants run alongside the bulls, looking back to avoid being gored on the raging bull horns. Since 1910, 16 people have died and hundreds are injured annually.

The four angry bulls part the sea of runners with their horns. As well as the dangers of getting hooked by a horn, sprinters run the risk of being trampled by the 600kg animals—or stampeded by their fellow frightened runners.