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 sculptural artwork depicting former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and headless presidents shot by a hooded high school student (not pictured) is seen at the Contemporary Art Museum in Santiago, December 2, 2014. The artwork, part of the “El ladrillo angular” (The angular brick) exhibition, portrays a student fighting against the ongoing continuity of dictatorship because of a political and economic system which has been impossible to destroy, according to “Papas Fritas” the artwork's creator. (Photo by Ivan Alvarado/Reuters)

Michael Bath, from McLeans Ridges in New South Wales, Australia, estimates that in his lifetime he has taken more than 3,500 images of lightning bolts illuminating the sky. Photo: Alstonville, New South Wales, Australia – January 8, 2003. (Photo by Michael Bath/Caters News)

English singer, songwriter and model Sophie Ellis-Bextor performs at G-A-Y at The Astoria on February 17, 2007 in London, England. (Photo by Jo Hale/Getty Images)

A cow covered with foam scavenges in the waste left on the banks of the polluted Yamuna river in New Delhi on October 10, 2020. (Photo by Sajjad Hussain/AFP Photo)

A baby Chimpanzee plays in its enclosure at Taronga Zoo July 14, 2006 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Ian Waldie/Getty Images)

Nine-year-old Barry Miller appears none too impressed with the movements of an African Rock Python which is exploring his scalp. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images). 27th August 1961

A Geminid meteor streaks diagonally across the sky against a field of star trails behind one of the peaks of the Seven Sisters rock formation in this long exposure early December 14, 2007 in the Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada. The meteor display, known as the Geminid meteor shower because it appears to radiate from near the star Castor in the constellation Gemini, is thought to be the result of debris cast off from an asteroid-like object called 3200 Phaethon. The shower is visible every December. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)