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)

South Sudanese traditional dancers prepare to welcome Pope Francis during his visit in Juba, South Sudan on February 3, 2023. (Photo by Thomas Mukoya/Reuters)

An ethnic Kayaw couple Mu Htoo and her husband Htaw Eili rest at their home at Htaykho village in the Kayah state, Myanmar September 12, 2015. With about 30,000 members, the Kayaw are one of the smallest ethnic minorities among Myanmar's 135 groups. Their village has for decades been off-limits, as armed rebels fought the military before a recent ceasefire stopped the bloody conflict here. The rebels in the area have put down their guns and taken to the hills to grow rice and corn, but slash-and-burn cultivation methods mean they struggle to find new places to farm. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

In this Monday, January 30, 2017 photo, wildfires straddle Chile's Dichato community. Strong winds are continuing to stoke the flames of raging wildfires in Chile, forcing the evacuation of more than 800 families in the coastal town of Dichato. (Photo by Esteban Felix/AP Photo)

A firefighter carries a woman from her car after it was caught in street flooding as a powerful storm moves across Southern California on February 17, 2017 in Sun Valley, California. After years of severe drought, heavy winter rains have come to the state, and with them, the issuance of flash flood watches in Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties, and the evacuation of hundreds of residents from Duarte, California for fear of flash flooding from areas denuded by a wildfire last year. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

A reveller from Tom Maior Samba School takes part in a carnival at Anhembi Sambadrome in Sao Paulo February 14, 2015. (Photo by Nacho Doce/Reuters)

The old church of Geamana village is seen partially submerged by polluted water tainted with cyanide and other chemicals near Rosia Montana, central Romania, March 24, 2014. (Photo by Bogdan Cristel/Reuters)