The Rio de Janeiro Olympics kick off on August 5 for some two weeks of competitive games drawing athletes as well as audiences from around the world. As they prepare to cover the event, Reuters photographers look back on their favourite pictures from past Olympics where they captured the action on the ground as well as the participants' tears and joy that followed. (Photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

An Indian man feeds peanuts to monkeys along a busy street in Ahmedabad on July 31, 2016. Feeding animals is sacred in Hindu society. (Photo by Sam Panthaky/AFP Photo)

A young man looks over his shoulder as men watching a soccer match in a nearby bar ask why he isn't watching the game, while walking with his date during the men's gold medal soccer match between Brazil and Germany during Rio 2016 on Saturday, August 20, 2016. (Photo by Aaron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)

In this September 1, 2016 photo, 90-year-old street vendor Antonio Bauza waits for tourists to sell his bananas, next to the village church in Remedios, Cuba. With the arrival of the first commercial flights from the U.S. to Cuba in more than 50 years, the Cuban government is welcoming the wave of new visitors and struggling to update infrastructure that's already overwhelmed. (Photo by Ramon Espinosa/AP Photo)

Lightning strikes during a storm over the Ionian Sea in Calabria, Italy on June 27, 2016. (Photo by Alfonso Di Vincenzo/Pacific Press/Rex Features)

The northern lights, or aurora borealis, appear in the sky over the Bamburgh lighthouse at Stag Rock in Northumberland, England on September 28, 2016. (Photo by Owen Humphreys/PA Wire via ZUMA Press)

A giant panda cub falls from the stage while 23 giant pandas born in 2016 seen on a display at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Chengdu, Sichuan province, China, September 29, 2016. (Photo by Rex Features)

An Egyptian boy holds a camel at the Berqash camel market northeast of Cairo, on August 17, 2018. Muslims across the world are preparing for the Eid al-Adha holiday when custom requires the faithful to make a sacrifice. (Photo by Khaled Desouki/AFP Photo)