Summer bullfighting comes to Benidorm

TRADITIONAL bullfighting tournaments will again return to Benidorm this summer under the headline banner of ‘Art and Emotion.’ The town hall decided on this second successive year of Taurino due to the popularity of last year’s event, which drew crowds of 10,000 aficionados over its three weekends.

For the four previous years Benidorm had been without a Taurino due to problems over the bullring and organising association.

A representative of Benidorm’s organising committee for the Taurino, Javi Gonzales Viza, said he believed the event would be popular with both die hard local fans and tourists, though no statistics are available to show the numbers of foreign tourists that attended the events.

The absence of bullfighting from Benidorm was de to the town’s facilities not meeting the standards required by the sport’s governing body, and as if to emphasise the seriousness with which Spain’s national sport is taken, the Valencia regional government only last Sunday issued a fresh number of rules and regulations concerning the practice of bullfighting in the region.

These included the time the bull would have to arrive at the stadium and the number of flags that could be used in the arena. Such is the attention to detail adopted by the authorities of the sport.

A government spokesman emphasised that safety for spectators and the welfare of the animals involved was paramount and that (as in Benidorm in the past) whole Taurino could be suspended or even cancelled if the rigorous regulations were not adhered to.

By Paul Deed