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)

Sister Rebecca Leis pours low-gluten alter bread batter into a machine that bakes the thin bread at the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration monastery in Clyde, Missouri, December 18, 2014. The Sisters have made communion wafers since 1910 and began making a low-gluten version in 2003 and have gone from 143 customers in 2004 to more than 11,000 customers from around the world. (Photo by Dave Kaup/Reuters)

Woman and man playing domination games in bed. (Photo by NDAB Creativity/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A burned vehicle sits among a destroyed home in the Mountain fire, Wednesday, November 6, 2024, near Camarillo, Calif. (Photo by Ethan Swope/AP Photo)

Meropidae are seen on a rock in Van in Turkey on March 03, 2018. (Photo by Ali Ihsan Ozturk/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

The Glastonbury Grace Cup, a rare carved oak tankard is and an 18th century replica in silver gilt (L), is held at Glastonbury Abbey for the first time in 125 years on December 12, 2011 in Glastonbury, England. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

GDT Naturfotograf 2014 – “Die besten Naturfotografien des Jahres”. Radomir Jakubowski – Spieglein Spieglein. 2nd place: Mammals. (Photo by Radomir Jakubowski)

A couple embraces at the railway station in Kramatorsk, on May 20, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Sergey Shestak/AFP Photo)