| Advertisement |
June 19 (UPI) -- Iván Fandiño, a Spanish bullfighter, has died from his injuries after being gored when he tripped on his cloak during a festival in France, the matador's team said. The bull gored Fandiño, 36, during southwest France's Aire-sur-l'Adour bullfighting festival on Saturday. Fandiño sustained a lung wound and later died.
Advertisement
Fandiño, who participated in another festival event prior to the incident, was one of Spain's most popular bullfighters.
"Our feeling of homage and our memory for Ivan Fandiño, great figure of bullfighting," Spain's King Felipe and Queen Letizia said in a statement.
Fandiño was born in Orduña, Basque Country -- an autonomous community in northern Spain.
"I wish to transmit my condolences to the family of Iván Fandiño, as well as for the fans and the world of bulls in general, with whom I unite in the feeling of sad loss of this young bullfighter," Spain's Minister of Education, Culture and Sport Íñigo Méndez de Vigo said in a statement.
Though bullfighting originated in Spain, the often-criticized tradition became popular in France about a century and a half ago.
France declared bullfighting legal in 2012 after the French Constitutional Council rejected animal-rights groups requests to ban the practice throughout the entire country.
