The 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics came to an end on Sept. 5 after 30 days of athletic competition. As they said goodbye to an event that was years in the making, many of those who took part shared their emotions with the media.

The word we were most likely to hear when it came to how the athletes were feeling was 嬉しい (ureshii, happy). 「僕たちが積み上げてきたバスケットボールをしっかりと結果として証明できたことが何よりも嬉しい」(Boku-tachi ga tsumiagete-kita basukettobōru o shikkari to kekka to shite shōmei dekita koto ga nani yori mo ureshii, Above all, I’m happy that we could demonstrate [the level of] basketball that we’ve built up by our results), said 22-year-old wheelchair basketball player Renshi Chokai. He also used the phrase 何よりも (nani yori mo, above all/ more than anything), to help express his satisfaction with competing.

Yuto Horigome, a 22-year-old gold medalist in the men’s skateboarding street event, said, 「もうすごいシンプルなんですけど、本当にすごい嬉しいです」 (Mō sugoi shinpuru nan desu kedo, hontō ni sugoi ureshii desu, I know it’s really simple to say, but I’m very happy). One thing to note about Horigome’s words here is that, technically, he should have used すごく嬉しい (sugoku ureshii, very happy), since すごく is the adverbial form of the adjective すごい (sugoi, great). He’s not incorrect, however, since すごい is often used instead of すごく in Japanese conversation. For more formal situations, it is better to use すごく.