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)

Olga Gharkova enters a aromatherapy room at the British Banya bathhouse, Saturday, February 15, 2014, in Krasnaya Polyana, Russia, just a few miles away from the ski slopes where athletes are competing for Olympic medals. (Photo by Jae C. Hong/Associated Press)

A Maasai moran athlete has his face smeared with red ocher paint during preparations for the 2016 Maasai Olympics at the Sidai Oleng Wildlife Sanctuary, at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro, near the Kenya-Tanzania border in Kimana, Kajiado, Kenya December 10, 2016. (Photo by Thomas Mukoya/Reuters)

In this January 27, 2020 photo, Jessica Hahn-Chaplin applies make up before a rehearsal of the Paraiso de Tuiuti samba school in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Hahn-Chaplin dances samba annually in Bath, England. (Photo by Silvia Izquierdo/AP Photo)

A reveller from Unidos da Tijuca samba school performs during the second night of the carnival parade at the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, February 28, 2017. (Photo by Ricardo Moraes/Reuters)

A reveller performs during the first night of carnival parade at the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on February 23, 2020. (Photo by Carl de Souza/AFP Photo)

Fans of the Brazilian heavy metal band Sepultura enjoy their showo at the main stage of Rock in Rio festival 2019 at the Olympic Park, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on October 4, 2019. The week-long Rock in Rio festival started September 27, with international stars as headliners, over 700,000 spectators and social actions including the preservation of the Amazon. (Photo by Mauro Pimentel/AFP Photo)