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 paper rhacophorus arvalis (farmland green tree frog) of Taiwan (R) is surrounded by paper pandas at an exhibition called “Pandas on Tour” at the National Theater in Taipei on February 24, 2014. Some 1,600 paper made pandas are on display, designed by French artist Paulo Grangeon. (Photo by Mandy Cheng/AFP Photo)

A man feeds a seagull during a record low tide in Saint Malo, western France, March 21, 2015. Towns on France's North Atlantic coast braced for their first giant tide of the millennium on Saturday as the full moon and this week's solar eclipse combined to create an ocean surge not seen since 1997. (Photo by Stephane Mahe/Reuters)

Looters scramble in Philipsburg, St. Maarten, Sunday September 10, 1995 for goods in the Ram's department store, which contained mostly food and liquor. No attempts are currently being made by Dutch troops on the island to stop the looting, since few relief supplies have arrived in St. Maarten, which was ravaged on Tuesday by Hurricane Luis. (Photo by John McConnico/AP Photo)

A golden pheasant is seen at Hangzhou Safari Park in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China, November 13, 2016. According to local media, the pheasant gains popularity as its golden feathers resemble the hairstyle of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

Debutantes Amira Rayner, 19 (L) and Eliza Lewis, 17 (R) prepare at Boughton Monchelsea Place ahead of the Queen Charlotte's Ball on September 9, 2017 in Maidstone, England. (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images)

An Army Sikorsky R-5 helicopter, undergoing record trials, demonstrates its lifting power by carrying 17 persons and pilot aloft as female onlookers wave in Bridgeport, Conn., January 10, 1946. During the tests records were claimed for altitude speed and both altitude and speed with payload. (Photo by Anthony Camerano/AP Photo)

Storks that were saved by Bulgarian farmer Safet Ismail are pictured in the village of Zaritsa, Bulgaria, March 21, 2018. Dozens of people from villages in north-eastern Bulgaria took storks to their houses as a lot of the birds got injured due to freezing temperatures and snowfalls in the area over the last few days. (Photo by Stoyan Nenov/Reuters)