Sydney swimmer Brett Hawke smashed the Australian record to put himself in medal contention for the Olympic 50m freestyle title in Athens.

Hawke clocked 22.07s in his semi-final to hack 0.11s off his own mark set at the 2001 world championships in Fukuoka, Japan.

He qualified second fastest for Saturday's final behind South African Roland Schoeman, who registered 21.99s to win their semi - just 0.01s faster than his Commonwealth record.

Schoeman has already won gold as part of the South African world record-breaking 4x100m freestyle relay and silver in the individual 100m freestyle behind Flying Dutchman, Pieter van den Hoogenband.

Hawke was thrilled with his time.

I just wanted to come here and make the final so I'm very happy about that," Hawke said.

"I haven't done a PB in three years, so it's about time.

I've had an amazing year, I'm very happy in Melbourne. My coach is great for me, but all my thanks goes to my wife. She looks after me like you wouldn't believe. Trudy, I love you so much."

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