The Olympic gold medallist says playing AFL is his dream.

"I would give absolutely everything to see if that dream would take off," Chalmers told News Corp.

"I know how hard it can be to be an athlete in regards to training and commitment.

"If there was a sniff I could play AFL football, I would train all day every day to see if I could get drafted."

The 20-year-old Chalmers, whose father Brett played 75 AFL games for Port Adelaide and Adelaide, acknowledged the difficulty in swapping sports.

"It would be hard for me to go from being at the top of the swimming world to potentially being a rookie on a footy list," he said.

"There would be a big shock but I would do everything I could and give everything up to pursue that dream because it has been a dream of mine since I was small."

Chalmers, who won 100m freestyle gold and two bronze medals at the 2016 Rio Olympics, played Australian rules football as a youth before concentrating on swimming.

Australian Associated Press