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)

World War II reenactors gather ahead of the 80th anniversary of the 1944 D-Day landings in Sainte-Mere-Eglise, Normandy region, France, on June 2, 2024. (Photo by Benoit Tessier/Reuters)

Locals dress up as Mazcaras to celebrate Entroido on February 21, 2023 in A Xironda, Spain. Entroido is an ancient rural carnival celebrated in Galicia during the previous days of Ash Wednesday. Each town has its traditional characters and costumes. In the small village of A Xironda, locals dress up as Mazcaras with their characteristic masks, cowbells at the waist and whips, and then run through the streets. (Photo by Brais Seara Fernandez/Getty Images)

South Korean performers participate in a re-enactment of the battle of the Korean war during the ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the Korean War in Cheorwon, near the border with North Korea on June 25, 2020 in Cheorwon, South Korea. Over 66,000 South Koreans have been separated from their families during the Korean War which started on June 25, 1950, and effectively split the Korean Peninsula into two over the 3-year conflict. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

“A snapshot from mountaineer's life”. Have you ever wondered how does a mountaineer's day start? I will give you a hint: you wake up at 3 am, set the stove, wake up your partner, pretend it is warm, quickly consume a high-calorie breakfast, watch your friends slowly ascending the icy slopes of your dream summit with their tiny head torches glimmering against perfectly blue ice, and hope for the good weather. One would ask: why all this trouble? The answer is easy: for the love of the adventure and the unknown. Location: Chamonix, Haute Savoye, France. (Photo and caption by Kamil Tamiola/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

ATTENTION! All pictures are presented in high resolution. To see Hi-Res images – just TWICE click on any picture. In other words, click small picture – opens the BIG picture. Click BIG picture – opens VERY BIG picture.

“Ary Borges and his family live in southern Brazil like most families the Borges' love animals and have an array of cats living in their home. The only difference between the cats owned by the Borges family and the cat that is cuddled up on your lap as you read this is the Borges' cats weigh over 700 pounds and could kill you just as soon as look at you. The Borges family shares their home with nine tigers, two lionesses, a chimp and a Chihuahua”. – Amanda Schiavo via Latin Times. Photo: The Borges' family pet dog, Little, is placed on the back of Tom, their tiger, for a photo to be taken, in Maringa, Brazil, Friday, September 27, 2013. (Photo by Renata Brito/AP Photo)

Jenny Odell repurposes online imagery mostly from Google Maps, but also from YouTube, Craigslist, and other sites. In her “Satellite Collections”, for example, she incorporated aerial views of swimming pools, basketball courts, parking lots, and other recognizable structures, seen from space. Her more recent series, “Satellite Landscapes”, includes painstakingly isolated Google Maps imagery of oil refineries, wastewater treatment plants, solar farms, etc. This work is meant as a reminder of our physically determined and vulnerable existence, since we depend on many of these things for survival and maintenance of our way of life. Photo: Natural gas plant in Pittsburg, CA (detail of Power Landscape), 2013. (Photo by Jenny Odell)

Characters dressed as Elmo and Cookie Monster who pose for tips take a photo by request from a tourist (2nd R, black pants) in Times Square in the Manhattan borough of New York City, January 29, 2016. (Photo by Rickey Rogers/Reuters)