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)

Smoke rises from a house days after part of the ground it was resting on collapsed into Lake Whitney, Texas in this June 13, 2014 file photo. I was covering the controlled burn of a house slowly falling into Lake Whitney due to the decaying cliff underneath. Asked to take photos from an aerial perspective, an instructor and I took off from Grand Prairie Municipal Airport around 9am. The burn, scheduled to start an hour later, was delayed. I love flying, but patience proved challenging as circling for nearly three hours gets boring fast. Once the fire started we only had 15 minutes to take photos because the plane was booked at 1pm. The owners invested their retirement savings in the house and were even advised by geologists that the ground was stable. To watch your investment literally go up in flames must take its toll emotionally. The owners said they don't expect their insurance to cover the loss. (Photo and caption by Brandon Wade/Reuters)

Schick Hydro and Chanel Iman get guys #NakedFaced at the Schick Hydro Barbershop at The Sports Illustrated Swim City Event on February 9, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for Schick)

The golden retriever and its history were feted by 222 goldens and their masters who gathered from around the globe for a celebration in the breed's ancestral Scottish Highlands home in July. Hosted by the Golden Retriever Club of Scotland, the festival is held at the abandoned home of Dudley Coutts Marjoribanks, who bred the first golden retriever.

John Malkovich as Marilyn Monroe in a re-creation of Andy Warhol's 1962 painting. The image is a part of the series, “The Malkovich Sessions”, by photographer Sandro Miller and on display at the Catherine Edelman Gallery in Chicago. Miller wanted to pay homage to the artists who influence his photographic career, and approached Malkovich with the idea of re-creating the famous portraits. (Photo by Sandro Miller/Catherine Edelman Gallery)

Revelers march during the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, Tuesday, October 31, 2017, in New York. (Photo by Andres Kudacki/AP Photo)

Runners cross the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge shortly after the start of the New York City Marathon in New York, November 2, 2014. (Photo by Lucas Jackson/Reuters)

A view of migrants on the beach at sunrise after a fail attempt to cross the Channel to the UK on a small boat, in Sangatte, near Calais, France on August 10, 2023. (Photo by Pascal Rossignol/Reuters)