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 bicyclist with a bike painting on her face rides past the Museum of the Future, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, November 6, 2022. Thousands of people take part in annual Dubai Ride on the skyscraper-lined super highway that cuts through the center of the city. (Photo by Kamran Jebreili/AP Photo)

Astronauts Harrison Schmitt (left) and Eugene Andrew Cernan practice taking geological samples at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, in preparation for NASA's scheduled Apollo 17 lunar landing mission, on August 28, 1972. Schmitt is the Lunar Module Pilot and Cernan is the mission's Commander. They are training for their period of EVA (extravehicular activity) on the Moon. (Photo by Space Frontiers/Getty Images)

This photograph taken on February 18,2023 shows Asriyanti Iskandar, a member of the Kuala Lumpur Freefly group kissing her Sun Conure parrot during a free-flight session in Bangi, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. The group organises events on public holidays and weekends to share knowledge of their experiences of free-flight training with fellow bird enthusiasts. (Photo by Mohd Rasfan/AFP Photo)

A farmer harvests the lotus roots at a lotus pond in the Lingjiaohu Village of Nanxian County, Yiyang City, Central China's Hunan Province on April 26, 2023. Farmers in Lingjiaohu Village of Nanxian County have recently been busy with harvesting lotus roots. (Photo by Xinhua News Agency/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Two orphaned wallaby joeys enjoy a play date to help them boost their social skills in Australia early July 2023. The rescued joeys are being hand-raised at Aussie Ark in News South Wales. (Photo by Aussie Ark/Cover Images)

A seal infront of a passing cruise ship on the shore between Sandhaven village and Fraserburgh in Scotland in August 2023. (Photo by Mark Grant/Caters News Agency)

An Afghan boy mourns next to the grave of his little brother who died due to an earthquake, in Zenda Jan district in Herat province, western of Afghanistan, Monday, October 9, 2023. Saturday's deadly earthquake killed and injured thousands when it leveled an untold number of homes in Herat province. (Photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo)