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)

“Ba game is a version of medieval football played in Scotland, perhaps most notably in Orkney and the Scottish Borders, around Christmas and New Year”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Men tussle for the leather ball during the annual “Fastern Eve Handba” event in Jedburgh's High Street in the Scottish Borders on March 1, 2012 in Jedburgh, Scotland. The annual event, which started in the 1700's, takes place today and involves two teams, the Uppies (residents from the higher part of Jedburgh) and the Doonies (residents from the lower part of Jedburgh) getting the ball to either the top or bottom of the town. The ball, which is made of leather, stuffed with straw and decorated with ribbons is thrown into the crowd to begin the game. (Photo by Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images)

A girl rides a donkey as another walks by at the Shawqaba camp for internally displaced people who were forced to leave their villages by the war in Yemen's northwestern province of Hajjah March 12, 2016. In northwest Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the Middle East, about 400 families uprooted by the war have been stuck in the Shawqaba camp in Hajjah province for the past year. Residents live in poorly built huts that protect them neither from summer heat nor winter cold in a camp that lacks the most basic services. (Photo by Abduljabbar Zeyad/Reuters)

“Eye of a toad”. Animal Portraits, Łukasz Bożycki, Poland. Early spring sees a pond near Łukasz’s home city of Warsaw, Poland, full of mating frogs and a few toads. On this March day, Łukasz shared the pond with them for an evening, sitting in the icy water in his chest-high waders, keeping as still as possible, despite the numbing cold, so that the amphibians could get used to him. “I wanted to find a fresh way of portraying the amphibians”, he says, “at water level”. Using a telephoto lens, he focused on one lone toad and waited for the sun to dip almost below the horizon before pressing the shutter, using flash to bring out the details in the shadow. His prize was “the glorious pool of sunset colour” and fiery glow of the toad’s eye. Nikon D80 + 70-300mm f4.5-5.6 lens + extension tube; 1/125 sec at f9 (-2.3 e/v); ISO 100; built-in flash. (Photo by Łukasz Bożycki)

A girl stands with arms outstretched at North Narrabeen on January 27, 2024 in Sydney, Australia. Around 30 indigenous children from Brewarrina, Weilmoringle, and Goodooga in the far North West NSW travelled to Sydney to participate in the program. The initiative is part of the Bush to Beach programme, which now in its 19th year, gives indigenous children a unique opportunity to learn and explore Sydney's beach culture. (Photo by Jenny Evans/Getty Images)

These heartbreaking photo show a confused family of elephants attempting to navigate a railway line built straight through their habitat on October 16, 2012. Taken by Biplab Hazra in Bishnupur, India, the images show the extreme lengths the inhabitants of the town go to to deter elephants from damaging their crops and property. As the images show, villagers often resort to extreme tactics in an effort to drive the elephants out with one shocking photograph revealing firebombs being launched at a mother and calf as they cross the road. Elephants encroaching out of their habitats is an increasingly common occurrence with deforestation in much of India. (Photo by Biplab Hazra/Caters News Agency)

Jennifer Lopez stars in the spring-summer 2020 campaign for fashion giant, Versace. The 50-year-old actress appears in the eye-catching campaign, shot by fashion photographers Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott, described by the brand as “a provocation on the power of the internet“. (Photo by Versace/The Mega Agency)