Special Merit Award. Mallory Franklin (2019). The British slalom canoeist has competed internationally since 2009 and won nine medals in total at the ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships with four golds, four silvers and a bronze. She has also won eleven medals at the European Championships. (Photo by Richard Pelham/World Sports Photography Awards 2021)

Russian servicemen display military camouflage equipments during the joint military anti-terrorist command and staff exercise of the armed forces of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states Peace Mission-2021 at the Donguz training ground in the Orenburg region, Russia, 23 September 2021. More than 3.4 thousand servicemen from Russia, India, China, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and more than 600 units of weapons, military and special equipment are involved in the exercise Peace Mission-2021. (Photo by Maxim Shipenkov/EPA/EFE)

An American flag is visible in the windows of the cupola aboard the International Space Station. Thanks to a bill passed by Texas legislators in 1997 that put in place technical voting procedure for astronauts – nearly all of whom live in Texas – they have the ability to vote from space through specially designed absentee ballots. To preserve the integrity of the secret vote, the ballot is encrypted and only accessible by the astronaut and the county clerk responsible for casting the ballot. (Photo by NASA)

An affected boy walks along a muddy street after heavy rain in Nowshera district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, Friday, September 2, 2022. Planes carrying fresh supplies are surging across a humanitarian air bridge to flood-ravaged Pakistan as the death toll surged past 1,200, officials said Friday, with families and children at special risk of disease and homelessness. (Photo by Mohammad Sajjad/AP Photo)

Natalia Lage Rainha de Drums of the Escola de Samba Inocente de Belford Roxo during a presentation in the parade of the Special Group of Carnival in Rio de Janeiro at Avenida Marques de Sapucai, Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro on April 21, 2021. The Carnival parades that take place in February were postponed to this month of April due to the high number of cases caused during the pandemic caused by COVID-19 (Coronavirus). (Photo by Thiago Ribeiro/AGIF via AFP Photo)

“What did I know about Chechnya before last week? For someone who grew up in the 1990s the very word Chechnya meant a string of grainy images on TV showing people in battered camouflage outfits, shooting at each other amid destruction and ruin. Fear, wahhabis, Shamil Basayev, terrorism, mountains: these were the words that used to spring to my mind when someone mentioned Chechnya”. – Maxim Shemetov. Photo: Special forces officers stand guard during a government-organised event marking Chechen language day in the centre of the Chechen capital Grozny April 25, 2013. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)

An orphaned rhesus monkey and white dove that seemed to have lost its mate forged a special bond at the Neilingding Island-Futian National Nature Reserve in China. The monkey was born on the island but had strayed from its mother. Luckily, it was taken in by work staff in the protection center and became friends with the pigeon that had lingered there after possibly losing its mate. (Photo by CNImaging/Photoshot)

“Weapons Instructor”, 2012. It’s a well known fact that the IDF trains some of the best soldiers in the world, but at the source of every good soldier lies an exceptional instructor – and that’s where Cpl. Daniella Stepanoe steps in. She travels from base to base training everyone from paratroopers to elite special forces units in the use of their weapons. (Photo by Israel Defense Forces)