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)

A Great White Pelicans eats fish in the Mishmar HaSharon reservoir, Israel, Wednesday, November 4, 2015. Thousands of Pelicans stop in the reservoir for food provided by the Israeli nature reserves authority as they make their way to Africa. (Photo by Ariel Schalit/AP Photo)

A photograph of Cuba's former President Fidel Castro decorates a wall inside a state-run market in Havana, March 8, 2016. (Photo by Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters)

Veteran racehorse Morestead models the world's first authentic Harris Tweed suit designed for a racing horse, which has been specially commissioned by William Hill to celebrate the opening of this year's Cheltenham Festival on March 15, 2016 in the U.K. (Photo by Joe Pepler/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Boys play with water as they celebrate Myanmar's New Year Water Festival of Thingyan in Yangon, April 13, 2016. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

Charcoal burner Zygmunt Furdygiel fires wood inside a charcoal furnace at a charcoal making site in the forest of Bieszczady Mountains, near the village of Baligrod, Poland October 27, 2016. (Photo by Kacper Pempel/Reuters)

The Dora the Explorer balloon moves through Times Square during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade Thursday, November 23, 2006 in New York. (Photo by Frank Franklin II/AP Photo)

A wildlife caregiver holds an orphaned wombat at the Native Wildlife Rescue center on January 29, 2020 in Robertson, Australia. The center has taken in many burned kangaroos and wallabies injured in recent bushfires. Wombat orphans are often rescued from the pouch of their mothers struck by vehicles. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)