San Fermin Fair: A deluge in Pamplona! | Culture

A huge downpour that began at around a quarter to nine at night forced the suspension of the inaugural bullfight of the San Fermin fair before the third bull came out. The event was stopped for about ten minutes while waiting for the rain to stop, but the president decided to suspend it in view of the state of the ring, which had become a real swimming pool, and the persistence of the water.

After a hot day in the Navarrese capital, the first drops began to fall when Alejandro Chicharro was muleting his first bull, but the rain increased when the sand workers tried to smooth the ring before the announcement of the exit of the third bull. It was not necessary, because the downpour forced all those present to seek shelter under the stands and the stands, and the only one who remained in the ring was the next swordsman, Samuel Navalón, who made signals to the box to order the continuation of the bullfight.

The president wisely ignored him and decided to wait in the hope that the rain would stop and the bullfight could resume; but it was not possible, the rain fell harder and harder, the ring became impassable and after nine o’clock at night the suspension of the event was announced.

Until then, two bulls had been fought, fair in presentation, with very uneven performance on the horses, both very noble, with mobility and poor quality.

Jarocho had arrived in Pamplona preceded by a logical expectation after his exit on shoulders through the Puerta Grande of Las Ventas last San Isidro, and, certainly, he once again demonstrated that he has meritorious qualities as a bullfighter with the cape and muleta, although he was not able to thrill the audience at any moment of the fight. He greeted his opponent with a long change of knees in the third and graceful veronicas, which he repeated later in a pass. He began the work with the muleta with tasteful high help, and in three series with the right hand he said that he has bullfighting manners, although the bullfight did not take off due to the lack of zeal of the noble bull. Jarocho lengthened the bullfight, which led to the animal coming up and showing better class with the left horn, which was not taken advantage of by the bullfighter as the occasion deserved. Afterwards, he gave a rally with the sword and blurred everything.

Alejandro Chicharro also knelt down to greet the second bull of the afternoon with a farol, which was not gored and came out loose from luck. Very determined, the novillero began the final third also on his knees in the center of the ring, and there he resisted the greed of the bull with three violent right-handers that ended in a disarming. Chicharro is a novillero with experience, made, perhaps, for the alternative, and he did not finish breaking with a technical and cold work before a repetitive animal. In an attempt to raise the public’s spirits, he tried to finish a series by taking the bull out from behind, which led to a spectacular somersault from which he miraculously emerged unscathed. He also failed with the sword when he had called the public’s attention with some tight bernadinas, and everything fell silent.

By then it had already started to rain and the dark clouds threatened a major storm, which is what happened.

The third bullfighter of the afternoon, Samuel Navalón, only had the opportunity to let go of his nerves in a caleserinas pass with that bull; his insistent pleas to the president could not be answered by basic common sense, and both he and all the teams were soaked to the bone, as was logical given the great downpour that fell at that time in Pamplona.

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