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 worker pulls one of her colleagues on a sled, normally used to transport boxes, in the finish area of the alpine ski venue at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Wednesday, February 16, 2022, in the Yanqing district of Beijing. (Photo by Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo)

Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark serves to Alisa Kleybanova of Russia during the BNP Paribas Open at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden on March 15, 2011 in Indian Wells, California. (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)

A member of the pro-government “red shirt” movement attacks a Buddhist monk outside the National Anti-Corruption Commission office in Nonthaburi province, on the outskirts of Bangkok March 24, 2014. Members of the movement attacked the monk after he shouted complaints to the group blocking a road near the National Anti-Corruption Commission. (Photo by Chaiwat Subprasom/Reuters)

A shepherd and his flock in the Bitlis province of eastern Turkey in the first decade of April 2024. Shepherds regularly embark on gruelling journeys through the dusty outback, as they take their sheep to the high plateaus needed for grazing and then back to villages for milking. (Photo by Kahraman Kaya/Solent News)

A South Korean diver wearing a little mermaid costume performs in a tank ahead of the “Chuseok” national holiday, at the Coex Aquarium in Seoul, South Korea, 26 August 2022. Chuseok is the autumn harvest celebration of the Lunar Calendar and is one of Korea's biggest traditional holiday, which falls on 10 Setpember this year. (Photo by Jeon Heon-Kyun/EPA/EFE)

This handout photo taken on March 8, 2021 and released on March 9 by the Myitkyina News Journal shows a nun pleading with police not to harm protesters in Myitkyina in Myanmar's Kachin state, amid a crackdown on demonstrations against the military coup. (Photo by Myitkyina News Journal/Handout via AFP Photo)

A woman clatters pans to make noise after calls for protest went out on social media in Yangon on February 3, 2021, as Myanmar's ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi was formally charged on Wednesday two days after she was detained in a military coup. (Photo by AFP Photo/Stringer)