Run CSS3 animation only once (at page loading)

After hours of googling: No, it's not possible without JavaScript. The animation-iteration-count: 1; is internally saved in the animation shothand attribute, which gets resetted and overwritten on :hover. When we blur the <a> and release the :hover the old class reapplies and therefore again resets the animation attribute.

There sadly is no way to save a certain attribute states across element states.

You'll have to use JavaScript.

If I understand correctly that you want to play the animation on A only once you have to add

animation-iteration-count: 1

to the style for the a.