Messing with the bulls but not getting the horns

The opening weeks of the Hopkins fall sports season leaves little time for the stellar Blue Jay athletes to make their marks. This week in sports certainly had its high points, but who knows how the season will unfold? Who knows which stars will rise on the football field or the volleyball court in the upcoming months? While Hopkins athletes struggle for individual or team glories in their respective sports, this week's Athlete of the Week fought for something else. John Lippe fought to survive.

Junior John Lippe was Hopkins's lone participant in this year's annual Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain. Studying abroad in Strasbourg, France, he and two of his classmates took the long train ride to the streets of Pamplona with one goal in mind: to run like hell from giant animals with horns.

"We went in not really knowing what to think," Lippe said. "When we actually got there, the morning of (the race), all of a sudden, it was real. There were actually bulls and they were really close to you. Way too close to you. You could touch them."

The streets were packed with thousands of Spanish citizens and tourists celebrating the festival of San Fermin, a week-long fiesta of which the Running of the Bulls is a part. Not distracted by the commotion and squalor of drunken spectators, Lippe and his crew made their way to a plaza reasonably close to the medical tents an hour before the race began. As the clock ticked closer and closer to 8 a.m. (the start of the race), the tension began to heighten.

"We met one guy (in line) who said to us, 'You will not be able to finish this race,'" Lippe said. "Our plan was to get to that plaza, and we didn't think we were even going to see a bull ... but we did."

The initial firework which signaled the opening of the gates sounded, and the crowd was so thick, Lippe and his friends could barely move. When the second firework signaling the release of all eight bulls went off, it was go time.

"Our starting point was probably a third of the way down the race already, so we thought we would have plenty of time before the bulls got to us," Lippe said. "So we start jogging a little bit and then more space opens up ,and we start running. And then all of a sudden, all this panic rushes up from behind us from the crowd, and everyone just goes into survival mode."

Lippe found himself scrambling in a panic to find a safe place to run next to a wall, which would make it more difficult for an impending bull to reach him. Unfortunately, so was everybody else.

"You do everything in your ability just to get to that wall. So finally you start hearing this rush, and the bulls have little bells attached to them too. It's an eerie sound. You hear their hooves coming on the cobblestones."

When Lippe finally made it to the safe haven of the brick wall, he looked to his left to see his first bull of the race. A mere five yards away, the bull tossed up another competitor like a rag doll and trampled him to the ground. As sheer terror began to sink in, Lippe ran on, looking over his shoulder on the impending chaos.

"What happens is after the bulls pass by you, you're carrying newspapers, so if they get too close you wave it and the bulls are easily distracted that way. But after they pass by you, the guys who think they're really cool like to hit them really hard in the back with the newspaper. Like, if you touch a bull, it's really bad and the Spanish people really frown upon it, but hitting them with newspapers is apparently the thing to do.

So then this guy hits the bull so hard that it turned around and started goring him, driving him into the ground! All I saw was the bull's tail and his head just going up and down. Luckily, I think he was between the horns, because I didn't see him bloody afterward, but I'm pretty sure he cracked at least a rib."

Lippe followed behind the bull to finish the race, where he was greeted by his unharmed friends as they chanted the "Ole! Ole!" soccer chant.

"That was probably the happiest moment of my life," Lippe said.

He compared the thrills of Running with the Bulls with a rush he experienced later in his trip: skydiving in the Swiss Alps region. As a first-time skydiver, Lippe jumped tandem, meaning he was attached to a professional diver.

"As soon as I saw my friend fall out of the plane I was scared, but right after you fall for a few seconds, it's awesome, and you're just along for the ride. With Running of the Bulls, it's just you and the bulls and a bunch of other people trying to trample you. It's all in your control which is really scary, because if you screw up, you're dead."

After the Running of the Bulls came one of Spain's biggest (and most controversial) traditions: the bullfight. Bullfighting has undergone massive international scrutiny due to the violent nature in which the bulls are eventually killed. From a first-hand perspective, Lippe viewed the ancient sport a little bit differently.

"For the Spanish people it's really important. A lot of people outside their culture are really into the bullfighting, and I was the same way, but I went to one, and it was gruesome and it was bloody, and I'll probably never go to one again. But to the Spanish people it's not gruesome. It's just a part of their belief and their culture. After experiencing it with them, you kinda dig it."

John Lippe may not have received any gold medals for his race, but the stakes of his competition were greater than most. When the Spanish dust finally settled in Pamplona, all he could say was, "I'm happy to be alive."