Mayor Michael Müller illuminated the Brandenburg Gate in the Olympic colors on Friday, with a slogan that read: "We want the Games! Berlin for Olympia!"

Berlin are competing with Hamburg for the right to represent Germany as a bidder for the sporting extravanganza in 2024, with the country's Olympic Sports Federation announcing the winner in a ballot on March 21.

The winning city will hold a referendum before they officially submit their bid to the Olympic committee before the September 15 deadline.

The referendum in the capital has been scheduled for two day before this date, however a YouGov survey for the German dpa news agency on January 19 found over half of Berliners (54 percent) will reject the chance to bring the Olympics to the city for the first time since 1936.

"We want to start a discussion to convince all those who are critical," Mueller said. "It is the aim to bring the Olympics to the whole city and to make Berlin even more visible as a sports metropolis and a liberal-minded city."

Berlin lost a bid to stage the games for the millennium, when Sydney won.

A referendum last year also stopped a planned bid by Munich for the 2022 Winter Games.

apc/pwh (dpa, Reuters)