Participants gather before the start of a candlelight procession at the end of a three-day "Day of The Dead" (Dia de los Muertos) celebration in Old Town San Diego, California November 2, 2015. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)

A woman protests her eviction from a building she and others invaded about a week ago in the Flamengo neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tuesday, April 14, 2015. Police dislodged squatters from the building slated for use as a luxury hotel for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. (Photo by Silvia Izquierdo/AP Photo)

A reveller from Uniao da Ilha samba school performs during the second night of the carnival parade at the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil February 27, 2017. (Photo by Pilar Olivares/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)

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)

Estonia's olympic team female marathon runners triplets (L-R) Lily, Liina and Leila Luik run during a training session in Tartu, Estonia, May 26, 2016. Leila, Liina and Lily Luik will make Olympics history as the first identical triplets to compete against each other when they cross the start line for the women's marathon in Rio. (Photo by Ints Kalnins/Reuters)

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)