A Collection of Olympic Photo Essays From Around the Internet

A few of our favorites portraits of athletes then and now.

Mostly the summer Olympics provide an opportunity for all of us to watch our fit, impressive countrymen and women try to beat one another in sports, some of which we watch all the time and others we would have no idea existed if not for the Olympics (who knew men’s field hockey was a thing?). For media outlets throughout the world, the games also provide a golden opportunity to feature said fit, impressive countrymen and women in photo essays. We rounded up a few of our favorites from around the Interwebs.

• Neil Leifer’s photographs of athletes posing with landmarks from their home countries in Time

• Hometown Olympic hopefuls in LA Magazine
• Athletes who represented the States in the last Olympics held in London, in 1948, via the New York Times
• The same thing but with British athletes, thanks to the Independent
• Huffington Post on female Olympians then and now
• And finally: This year, Joe Klamar produced some portraits of Olympians that have gotten negative feedback. BuzzFeed did us the courtesy of collecting some of the most special here.