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)

Subway passengers walk past bronze sculptures representing the Soviet people at the Ploshchad Revolyutsii metro station in Moscow, on November 14, 2012. The station was opened in 1938. (Photo by Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP Photo)

A Pakistani vendor prepares peanuts for sale on a roadside in Peshawar, Pakistan, 01 January 2018. After a good raining season the sales of dry fruits flourish in the country. Tourists from all over Pakistan come to Peshawar to purchase dry fruits along with other items because of price differences between different parts of the country. (Photo by Bilawal Arbab/EPA/EFE)

People attend the New Year's eve gala of youth and students at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea Sunday, December 31, 2023. (Photo by Jon Chol Jin/AP Photo)

Tech. Sgt. Milo Hinson, 3rd Combat Camera Squadron, uses a flashlight while shooting a Berretta 9mm during the night-fire portion of Advance Weapons, Tactics and Techniques training in San Antonio. During night-fire training, airmen learn how to tactically illuminate targets with flashlights and practice using night vision goggles. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Jonathan Snyder/U.S. Air Force). 2011

An Indian paramilitary soldier stands guard at a polling station during the second phase of India's general elections, in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Thursday, April 18, 2019. Kashmiri separatist leaders who challenge India's sovereignty over the disputed region have called for a boycott of the vote. Most polling stations in Srinagar and Budgam areas of Kashmir looked deserted in the morning with more armed police, paramilitary soldiers and election staff present than voters. (Photo by Dar Yasin/AP Photo)

Gers, traditional Mongolian tents, are seen on a hill in an area known as a ger district in Ulan Bator June 26, 2013. Approximately 60 percent of the population of Ulan Bator live in settlements known as ger districts and in many cases residents have limited access to basic services such as water and sanitation. According to a 2010 National Population Center census, every year between thirty and forty thousand people migrate from the countryside to the capital Ulan Bator. Ger districts in the city have been expanding rapidly in recent years. Mongolia is the world's least densely populated country, with 2.8 million people spread across an area around three times the size of France. (Photo by Carlos Barria/Reuters)

An Afghan National Army (ANA) soldier assigned to the Mobile Strike Force Kandak fires a RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launcher during a live-fire exercise supervised by the Marines with the Mobile Strike Force Advisor Team on Camp Shorabak, Helmand province, Afghanistan, May 20, 2013. The Marines with the Mobile Strike Force Advisor Team instructed and mentored their ANA counterparts on how to properly utilize their weapons systems. (Photo by SSgt Ezekiel R. Kitandwe/RCT 7)