This Brazilian dog is a footvolley star. He teaches beachgoers how to play their own game

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This Brazilian dog is a footvolley star. He teaches beachgoers how to play their own game

2024-09-10 11:39 Last Updated At：11:41

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Rio de Janeiro’s main beaches bustle with commotion on sunny weekends. But activity ground to a near standstill on one stretch of sand. People held up their phones to record athletic feats they’d never before witnessed, or even imagined.

The game? Footvolley, a combination of soccer and beach volleyball. The athlete? A 3-year-old border collie named Floki.

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The border collie named Floki and athlete Natalia Guitler play footvolley, a combination of soccer and volleyball, on Leblon beach in Rio de Janeiro, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Rio de Janeiro’s main beaches bustle with commotion on sunny weekends. But activity ground to a near standstill on one stretch of sand. People held up their phones to record athletic feats they’d never before witnessed, or even imagined.

Coach Gustavo Rodrigues celebrates a point with his trainee, border collie named Floki, as they play footvolley, a combination of soccer and volleyball, on Leblon beach in Rio de Janeiro, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

The border collie named Floki high-fives his coach Gustavo Rodrigues as they prepare to play footvolley, a combination of soccer and volleyball, on Leblon beach in Rio de Janeiro, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

The border collie named Floki plays footvolley, a combination of soccer and volleyball, on Leblon beach in Rio de Janeiro, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

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RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Rio de Janeiro’s main beaches bustle with commotion on sunny weekends. But activity ground to a near standstill on one stretch of sand. People held up their phones to record athletic feats they’d never before witnessed, or even imagined.

Coach Gustavo Rodrigues celebrates a point with his trainee, border collie named Floki, as they play footvolley, a combination of soccer and volleyball, on Leblon beach in Rio de Janeiro, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

The border collie named Floki high-fives his coach Gustavo Rodrigues as they prepare to play footvolley, a combination of soccer and volleyball, on Leblon beach in Rio de Janeiro, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

The border collie named Floki plays footvolley, a combination of soccer and volleyball, on Leblon beach in Rio de Janeiro, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

Floki sparks wonder among bystanders, because he hangs tough in a game that even humans struggle to get a handle on. Footvolley rules are essentially the same as beach volleyball, but with a slightly lower net and, like soccer, players are forbidden from using hands and arms. Floki springs up from the sand to drive the ball with his mouth. He has become something of an internet sensation in Brazil, with hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram and TikTok.

Floki’s owner, Gustavo Rodrigues, is a footvolley coach, but swears he didn’t plan this. He had wanted an American Bully, a decidedly less sprightly breed. Floki came into Rodrigues’ life instead and quickly revealed his potential when, at just 2 months old, he started jumping after birthday balloons.

Rodrigues started Floki out on what's called “altinha,” where a group standing in a circle juggles a soccer ball for as long as possible. In 2023, Floki made his debut in the much more complex, competitive game of footvolley — a hobby enjoyed by some Brazilian soccer stars after they retire, including World Cup winners Ronaldinho and Romário.

Footvolley players need poise, agility, coordination, timing, finesse. Covering one side of the court between just two people means quick sprints back and forth on soft sand under the baking sun. It’s no mean feat, but Floki was a natural. A star was born.

“He does things that even some professionals don’t — like positioning on the court,” said Rodrigues, 26. “Sometimes the ball goes from one side (of the court) to the other, and he doesn’t keep his back turned to it. He turns toward the ball to always hit it straight on.”

It’s clear this high-energy pup lives for this game. Even resting under the shade of the beach’s caipirinha bar, he was laser-focused on the action of the adjacent court’s match.

When playing, he barks at Rodrigues to pass him the ball and seems to at least understand the basic rules. At times, rather than passing back to Rodrigues for the third and final touch their opponents expect, he sneaks the ball over the net himself to score a point. Then he jumps into Rodrigues’ arms to celebrate.

One of the awestruck onlookers Sunday was Luiza Chioli, who had traveled to Rio from Sao Paulo. She already knew the famous Floki from TikTok, but hadn’t expected front-row seats to watch him while sipping her gin and tonic.

“Seeing social media, we had thought it was just cuts, that they used the best takes,” said Chioli, 21. “But we saw he played, performed the whole time, did really well. It’s really cool.”

As Floki’s follower count has grown, partnerships and endorsement deals have come rolling in. Rodrigues and Floki live in the inland capital Brasilia, but often travel to Rio — footvolley’s mecca — and other Brazilian states to show off his skills, do marketing appearances and create monetized social media content.

His Sunday began with almost an hour playing beside former footvolley champion Natalia Guitler, who’s been called Queen of the Beach. Between attempts to film her doing a trick pass to him, he scampered for drinks of water or to dip in the ocean. By the end, both she and Floki were scrambling for shade.

“We’re dead,” she said as she collapsed onto the sand next to a panting Floki. Someone passed her a phone to check out the best clips for her Instagram, where she has almost 3 million followers.

“Me and my bestie @dog_altinha playing footvolley,” she wrote in a later post showing their long rally, and which included her bicycle kicking the ball over the net.

After a rest and another footvolley session, Floki headed to a more remote beach to do a marketing shoot for Farm, a fashion designer that’s become the paragon of Rio’s breezy tropical style, both in Brazil and abroad.

Then Floki was on Instagram hyping a brand of dog popsicles, gnawing a banana-flavored one himself, and giving an altinha demonstration to mall shoppers. His evening stroll along Copacabana’s beachside promenade showed him straining against his leash, still evidently bursting with his boundless energy.

With their weekend marketing blitz in Rio over, Rodrigues and Floki would head back to Brasilia, where their influencer hustle takes a back seat to the hustle of playing competitive matches. They win about one in every three, Rodrigues said, and their opponents are always desperate to avoid being beaten by a dog.

“It generates talk, and people make fun,” he said. “No one likes to lose a point to him, so people play their hearts out against us.”

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Central Europe flooding leaves 16 dead in Romania, Poland, Czech Republic and Austria

2024-09-17 08:56 Last Updated At：09:01

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Exceptionally heavy rainfall pounding Central Europe has prompted deadly flooding in the region, with four new deaths reported Monday in Poland, three in the Czech Republic and one in Romania.

The flooding has swamped parts of Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania as a low-pressure system crossing the region has unleashed record-high rains for days, and it was expected to affect Slovakia and Hungary later in the week. So far 16 people have been reported killed — seven people in Romania, five in Poland, three in the Czech Republic and one in Austria.

In Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk held an emergency meeting and later declared a disaster in flooded areas, a government measure to facilitate evacuation and rescues. He also said the government would provide 1 billion zlotys ($258,000) in immediate payouts to victims.

The flooding in Poland has burst dams and embankments while receding waters left streets covered in piles of debris and mud. It prompted a hospital in the southwestern Polish city of Nysa to evacuate about 40 patients.

Schools and offices in the affected areas were closed Monday and drinking water and food were being delivered by trucks. Many Polish cities, including Warsaw, have called for food donations for flood survivors.

Experts warned of flood threats due to the cresting Oder River in Opole, a city of some 130,000 residents, and Wroclaw, home to about 640,000 residents and where disastrous flooding happened in 1997.

Firefighters in southwestern Poland said flood victims included a surgeon whose body was found Monday morning in Nysa after he returned from hospital duty. The bodies of two women and two other men have been found in other communities in the region.

Police in the Czech Republic said that a woman and two men drowned in the northeast, which has been pounded by record rainfall since Thursday. The woman was found in the water in the town of Krasov and the men were found dead at different locations after water receded in the town of Krnov which was almost completely submerged on Sunday

Romanian authorities said Monday that another person died in the eastern county of Galati, bringing the total number of deaths there to seven.

One death previously was reported in Austria.

Authorities in the Czech Republic declared an emergency in two northeastern regions, including in the Jeseniky mountains near the Polish border.

A number of towns and cities had been submerged in the northeast, with thousands evacuated. Military helicopters joined rescuers on boats in efforts to transport people to safety. Waters were receding from the mountainous areas on Monday, leaving behind destroyed houses and bridges and damaged roads.

In most parts of the country, conditions were expected to improve later Monday.

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala visited the town of Jesenik, one of the hardest hit places.

“The worst is behind us and now, we have to deal with all the damage,” Fiala said following the visit.

In Hungary, the mayor of Budapest warned residents that the largest floods in a decade were expected to hit the capital later in the week, with the waters of the Danube River set to breach the city’s lower quays by Tuesday morning.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán canceled his planned foreign engagements, including an address to a plenary session of the European Parliament on Wednesday where heated debates were expected over his conduct since Hungary took over the European Union’s rotating presidency in July.

“Until we reach the peak and get past the worst of it, I naturally won’t be leaving the country, I’ll be here at home,” he said.

Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony wrote on Facebook that the city would use 1 million sandbags to bolster flood defenses, and asked residents to take extra care when near the river.

Karel Janicek reported from Prague. Justin Spike contributed to this report from Budapest, Hungary.

This Brazilian dog is a footvolley star. He teaches beachgoers how to play their own game

ENT

This Brazilian dog is a footvolley star. He teaches beachgoers how to play their own game

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Rio de Janeiro’s main beaches bustle with commotion on sunny weekends. But activity ground to a near standstill on one stretch of sand. People held up their phones to record athletic feats they’d never before witnessed, or even imagined.

Coach Gustavo Rodrigues celebrates a point with his trainee, border collie named Floki, as they play footvolley, a combination of soccer and volleyball, on Leblon beach in Rio de Janeiro, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

The border collie named Floki high-fives his coach Gustavo Rodrigues as they prepare to play footvolley, a combination of soccer and volleyball, on Leblon beach in Rio de Janeiro, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

The border collie named Floki plays footvolley, a combination of soccer and volleyball, on Leblon beach in Rio de Janeiro, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

The border collie named Floki plays footvolley, a combination of soccer and volleyball, on Leblon beach in Rio de Janeiro, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Rio de Janeiro’s main beaches bustle with commotion on sunny weekends. But activity ground to a near standstill on one stretch of sand. People held up their phones to record athletic feats they’d never before witnessed, or even imagined.

Coach Gustavo Rodrigues celebrates a point with his trainee, border collie named Floki, as they play footvolley, a combination of soccer and volleyball, on Leblon beach in Rio de Janeiro, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

The border collie named Floki high-fives his coach Gustavo Rodrigues as they prepare to play footvolley, a combination of soccer and volleyball, on Leblon beach in Rio de Janeiro, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

The border collie named Floki plays footvolley, a combination of soccer and volleyball, on Leblon beach in Rio de Janeiro, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

The border collie named Floki plays footvolley, a combination of soccer and volleyball, on Leblon beach in Rio de Janeiro, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

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