Running of the Bulls Trivia
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6correct to beat the crowd
57 free Running of the Bulls trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Running of the Bulls trivia quiz covers the Pamplona encierro from the first rocket at 8 a.m. to the fourth that says the herd is safely penned. It asks about the 875-metre route through the old quarter, the six fighting bulls and their escort of steers, the wooden fences, the medical posts, the white-and-red dress code and the chant sung to Saint Fermín before the gates open. It then widens to the whole festival of San Fermín: the chupinazo that opens it, the giants and big-heads parade, the nightly fireworks, the Pobre de mí that closes it, and the saint whose martyrdom the red kerchief recalls. Ernest Hemingway's novel and the run's later film appearances get their own questions, as do the other bull runs of Spain, Portugal and France, the vanished Stamford run in England, and the mock runs with reindeer, sheep and roller-skaters that copy the idea around the world. A few questions on the Spanish fighting bull itself round it off. Every answer is checked against Wikipedia's articles on the encierro, the festival, Pamplona, Saint Fermín and the fighting bull, and each explanation adds one further fact. Good for travellers heading to Navarre in July, pub quiz setters and anyone who has watched the run on television and wondered how it works. Bullfighting fans may also like our Bullfighting trivia page.
30 of 57 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01At what time each morning does the Pamplona bull run begin?
8 a.m.
8 a.m. is when the starting rocket goes up, but the run used to begin at dawn: it was held at six until 1924, then at seven, and only reached its present hour in 1974.
Q 02Which animals are let loose in the Pamplona bullring for runners to dodge once the morning's bulls are penned?
Young cows
Young cows, the 'vaquillas', are sent in with capped horns; smaller and nimbler than the bulls, they still bowl over plenty of the amateurs crowding the sand.
Q 03Roughly how long is the Pamplona bull-run route?
850 metres
About 850 metres of old-town streets is all it covers, yet nobody runs the lot: the herd is too fast, so each runner picks one short stretch and peels away as the horns arrive.
Q 04What becomes of the six bulls a few hours after each Pamplona morning run?
They face the matadors
They face the matadors at that evening's bullfight, which is why the run exists at all: it began as the drovers' way of moving the day's bulls from a corral at the edge of town to the arena.
Q 05What is the job of the steers that run alongside the fighting bulls?
Guiding the herd to the ring
Guiding the herd to the ring is their job: the steers run the route every morning and know the way, and a second group sets off behind to sweep up any bull that stops or turns back.
Q 06What does a Pamplona bull run's second rocket announce?
All bulls out
All bulls out: the first rocket says the corral gate is open and the second that every bull has left it; a third reports the herd inside the bullring and a fourth that it is penned, the signal to reopen the streets.
Q 07Roughly how long does a typical Pamplona bull run last, from first rocket to last bull penned?
About 3 minutes
About 3 minutes, and these days often less: an anti-slip coating on the route's sharpest bend keeps the bulls on their feet and the herd together, so runs have been getting quicker.
Q 08What do the 'pastores', the herdsmen who run behind the bulls in Pamplona, carry?
Long sticks
Long sticks are the herdsmen's only tool: they use them to keep the bulls moving forward and on any runner who goads an animal.
Q 09From which street's corral are the bulls released at the start of the run?
Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo runs uphill from the corral, yet the herd is at its fastest here: the bulls burst out fresh and are on top of the runners within seconds.
Q 10Which long, straight Pamplona street do the bulls enter after the sharp right-hand bend known as 'la curva'?
Estafeta
Estafeta is the run's longest straight, about 300 metres between house fronts; the bulls come out of the bend more slowly, so this is where runners try to get right in front of the horns.
Q 11The short final stretch of the route before the bullring is nicknamed after what former building?
The old telephone office
The old telephone office gave the 'Telefónica' stretch its name; it covers the last few metres before the tunnel into the bullring, and it was here that a bull gored a runner to death in 2009.
Q 12Why did Pamplona's bull run get a second fence in 1941?
A bull escaped
A bull escaped: in 1939 one named Liebrero smashed through the single fence and badly gored a woman, so two years later a second barrier went up behind the first.
Q 13Who is allowed to stand in the lane between the two fences during a Pamplona bull run?
Medics, police and press
Q 21What are the 'peñas', whose brass bands fill the sunny side of Pamplona's bullring?
Social clubs
Social clubs, each with its own smock, banner and brass band: when the bullfight ends they march out of the ring playing, an exit that has become one of the festival's rituals.
Q 22Before the COVID-19 pandemic, what had last cancelled Pamplona's San Fermín festival outright?
The Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War cost the city its festivals of 1937 and 1938; when they came back in 1939 the opening rocket returned with them, and it has started each one since.
Q 23What is the name of the rocket fired at noon to open Pamplona's San Fermín festival?
Chupinazo
Medics, police and press get the lane while spectators stay behind the outer fence; the gaps in the inner one are cut wide enough for a runner to dive through but too narrow for a bull.
Q 14By Pamplona's rules, who is banned outright from running with the bulls?
Under-18s
Under-18s are barred; the city's rules also oblige runners to go the same way as the bulls and never call or touch them, and police remove anyone who turns up drunk.
Q 15What do the 'dobladores' waiting inside the Pamplona bullring use to steer arriving bulls into the pens?
Capes
Capes, trailed along the sand rather than flourished as in a bullfight, draw each bull straight across the ring and into the pens as quickly as possible.
Q 16What are the red neckerchiefs of Pamplona's San Fermín festival said to commemorate?
The saint's death by beheading
The saint's death by beheading is the usual reading: the clergy wear red on a martyr's feast day, and in Pamplona the neckerchief is explained as the crowd's own version of that custom.
Q 17What everyday item do some runners carry rolled up to divert a bull's attention?
A newspaper
A newspaper, rolled into a baton, is the runner's one tool: a flick of it can draw a bull's attention away, and runners raise it as they sing to the saint before the start.
Q 18Which sight do Pamplona's runners dread most, since it makes serious gorings far more likely?
A lone bull
A lone bull is the danger: packed together the animals only want to follow each other along the route, but one that is cut off loses its bearings and turns on whatever moves.
Q 19What is the Spanish word for the dangerous pile-up of runners that can form at the bullring entrance?
Montón
Montón, literally 'heap', is the runners' word for it: the tunnel into the bullring is far narrower than the street, so one fall can stack bodies across it, as in 1977, when a runner suffocated.
Q 20Who staffs most first-aid posts on the Pamplona bull run?
The Red Cross
The Red Cross supplies most of the volunteers who staff the posts along the fences, which is how a badly gored runner can be on the way to hospital within minutes.
Chupinazo is the rocket fired from the town-hall balcony; the packed square below holds its red neckerchiefs stretched overhead until it goes up, and only then ties them on.
Q 24What is the name of the song that closes Pamplona's San Fermín festival at midnight on its last night?
Pobre de mí
Pobre de mí, 'poor me', mourns the end of the party: the crowd in the town-hall square sings it by candlelight and takes off the red neckerchiefs it has worn all week.
Q 25Why was the Riau-Riau council procession dropped from Pamplona's festival in the 1990s?
Protesters kept turning it violent
Protesters kept turning it violent: what began as a joke, the crowd dancing one waltz over and over to slow the councillors' 500-metre walk to church, became a yearly confrontation, and revivals in 1996 and 2012 failed.
Q 26Pamplona's parade giants are four royal couples, each standing for one of what?
Continents
Continents: the kings and queens of Europe, Asia, Africa and America, made in 1860 with Oceania left out; each figure is danced through the streets by a single bearer inside its frame.
Q 27What do the kilikis, the scowling big-headed figures in Pamplona's festival parade, do to children?
Swat them with foam truncheons
Swat them with foam truncheons: the six kilikis, with names such as Caravinagre and Napoleón, chase children along the route as the rowdy escort of the parade's dancing giants.
Q 28Which nightly event of Pamplona's San Fermín festival doubles as an international competition?
Fireworks
Fireworks: each night's display is an entry in a contest between pyrotechnics firms, and the way to judge it is the local one, stretched out on the grass of the park around the citadel and looking straight up.
Q 29Why did Pamplona move San Fermín's feast from autumn to July?
Better weather
Better weather: fed up with rain-soaked autumn feasts, the townspeople shifted the saint's day to early July, when a livestock fair with bullfights was already drawing crowds, and the two merged into one festival.
Q 30Where did Pamplona stage bullfights before building a bullring?
Main square
Its main square, the Plaza del Castillo: the bull run used to finish there, and the route only took its present shape once proper rings were built just beyond the square from the 1840s.