The first bull run in Spain's Pamplona lasted just 2.24 minutes on Wednesday, but left 60 people injured - though most sustained only bruises and abrasions, paramedics said, DPA reported.
Three participants in the perilous summer tradition, however, ended up in the hospital, including an 18-year-old Australian tourist who suffered a concussion after falling near the local bullring.
Injuries related to horn blows were not reported during this event, the first of eight daily morning bull runs. One participant had a close brush with a bull when its horn caught him by the sleeve. But the T-shirt ripped, leaving the young man with only a scare.
Several runners tripped and fell on top of each other due to the congested streets. Others were run over by the bulls, which can weigh up to 600 kilogrammes.
The dangerous spectacle will continue until July 14, with half-a- dozen fighting bulls and several tame oxen let loose in the narrow streets of the old city centre for a 825-metre dash to the bullring.
Up to 4,000 bull runners, nearly all of them men dressed in red and white in honour of the city's patron Saint Fermin, run alongside the animals, armed with nothing but folded newspapers.
The bull runs were made famous by Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises. They now draw up to a million visitors to the northern Spanish city of 185,000 residents for a week of partying, drinking, music and bulls.
Fifteen people have died while participating in the bull runs since 1924, most recently a 27-year-old tourist from Madrid who was gored to death in 2009.
Animal rights activists have long criticized the bull runs as amounting to torture for the animals.
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