Mountains have been carved into ski slopes, a swimming pool has been iced over into a skating rink and new high-speed railways and expressways connecting Beijing's three Olympic competition zones are nearly completed.

While Tokyo enters its final stages of preparations to host the Summer Games next year, Beijing is busy building and testing the infrastructure that will host the 2022 Winter Games.

(The 2022 Beijing Winter Games organizing committee unveils the official Olympic and Paralympic mascots Bing Dwen Dwen, left, and Shuey Rhon Rhon in the Chinese capital on Sept. 17, 2019.)

But it's the people, from the volunteers and staff to restaurant owners and morning commuters, which create a memorable Olympics, says Jean-Moussa Lucas, founder and managing director of JLE, a London-based staffing company specializing in international sporting events including the Olympics.

"You've got athletes and fans coming from all around the world to celebrate sports, nations and each other but the volunteers and staff are the ones that have a crucial part in creating a one-of-a-kind atmosphere," says Lucas, brightening just at the thought of the Games.

Beijing kicked off its global recruitment program for 27,000 Olympic volunteers earlier this month, attracting a total of 463,000 applicants in just the first four days, the government reported.

Applicants are required to be able to communicate in Chinese or English and will be chosen based on tests and interviews.

If Beijing's last Olympics in 2008 are of any indication, these volunteers, along with tens of thousands of sports judges, competition organizers, staff as well as ordinary store owners and schoolchildren will receive English training.

Lucas, whose newly established Japan office has recently started recruiting local staff for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games with plans to also be a part of the Winter Games in Beijing, says while language ability is important, adaptability and personality are key to workers that can deliver an unforgettable Olympics.

"This is a job where we don't have all the information until the very last minutes and even tight schedules may change. You have to have the kind of flexibility where you can come up with solutions on the spot, keep things on track and respond to whatever happens," Lucas explained.

Having just worked with hundreds of local staff this past fall during the 2019 Rugby World Cup, Lucas said being flexible didn't come naturally for his Japanese team and it was challenging for them at first.

"We really needed to educate our Japanese workforce that we couldn't know the schedule two months in advance," he said.

But with the help of his Japanese partner and team, "we managed to communicate why in a way that they understood and the result was that everyone was very flexible."

(A view of the big air slope for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics at Shougang Industrial Park on Nov. 26, 2019 in Beijing, China.)[Getty/Kyodo]

As for personality, "The Olympics are exciting. You must have people who are enthusiastic and can create an exciting atmosphere because they are the ones bringing you from one place to another making sure that you are having a good dinner or that you have a great cultural experience in the country."

And cultural experiences are what set apart one Olympic Games from another, even for athletes.

In Beijing to compete in the FIS halfpipe World Cup this month, three-time snowboarding Olympian Scotty James says a memorable Olympics from an athlete's perspective, consists of "a cultural experience we don't get anywhere else."

"Typically with the Olympics, they try to Westernize everything, too much. So we don't actually get the experience of that country that's hosting. For me, it's always about what can I learn from that country or what can I do in that country that I don't get anywhere else," the Australian explained.

This is why the local people and staff are the key players in making the upcoming Tokyo and Beijing Olympics a success, Lucas says.

"It's their own country, it's their own host culture. They are the ones that will communicate that to their international guests and they are the ones that will make their country's Olympics like no other Olympics on Earth."