Usain Bolt electrified those watching the Summer Olympics with his feats of speed (and feet, we suppose). But if you thought his 9.69 world-record time in the 100 was impressive, a Norwegian physicist wants you to know it could have been even better if Bolt wasn’t such a ham. From the AP:

“We estimate that he could have finished the race in a time between 9.55 and 9.61,” Norwegian physicist Hans Eriksen said Friday in a telephone interview.

Bolt won the final at the Beijing Olympics last month in 9.69 seconds, shaving 0.03 seconds off the record he set in May.

Eriksen, a physicist at the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Oslo, said he got the idea to examine just how quick Bolt could have gone after hearing Bolt’s coach say the Jamaican could have run 9.52 seconds.

“We saw the final on television and then spent the whole weekend researching,” Eriksen said. “It was fun. We’ve done more serious research work, but this one got far more attention.”

Eriksen and his colleagues analyzed TV footage of the race, focusing on Bolt’s position, speed and acceleration, as well as that of runner-up Richard Thompson.

Both sprinters slowed before the finish line, but Bolt’s chest-beating celebration some 20 meters before the line cut his speed more.

No word yet on whether Eriksen plans to study Michael Phelps’ performance to determine whether the swimmer would have been even more dominant without his freakishly large ears.

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