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)

Contestants congratulate Chelsea Morgensen (R) of Hollywood, California as she is crowned Miss Hooters International 2017 during the 21st Annual Hooters International Swimsuit Pageant at The Pearl concert theater at Palms Casino Resort on July 12, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Alamy Stock Photo)

American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift eyes are caught in a photographer's flash as she arrives on the red carpet for the “Billboard Women in Music” event in Los Angeles, California, U.S., December 12, 2019. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)

A man carries a sheep after it was rescued from mud in Sanliurfa, Turkey on January 9, 2019. Total of 67 sheep and a donkey rescued from mud by gendarmerie forces, firefighters and local people in Sanliurfa's Bozova district. (Photo by Halil Fidan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

A man dressed in Andean attire as “Ukukus” or “Pabluchas”, a traditional character that acts as a vigilante imposing social order, uses a whip as a threat to force people to maintain their distance and remind them to wear face masks and gloves as a preventive measure against the novel coronavirus COVID-19, in the Vinocanchon market area in San Jeronimo district, close to the Peruvian Andean city of Cusco, on May 2, 2020. The government has identified public markets as major hotspots of the new coronavirus in Peru, where 40,459 confirmed cases and 1,124 deaths were reported on May 1. (Photo by Jose Carlos Angulo/AFP Photo)

An artist wearing a coronavirus-shaped helmet and a protective suit stands next to a police barricade as he requests people to stay at home during an extended lockdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in New Delhi, India, April 30, 2020. (Photo by Adnan Abidi/Reuters)

Children are seen on a bike after Muslims in Nigeria perform Eid prayer following the global outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Nasarawa on May 24, 2020. (Photo by Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters)

A man takes a picture of the mural painted by the street artist Harry Greb depicting the Italian music composer Ennio Morricone, a day after the 91-year-old composer's death, on July 7, 2020 in Rome, Italy. (Photo by Antonio Masiello/Getty Images)