OSLO, Norway (AP) -- A physicist has done the math, and says Usain Bolt could have run the 100-meter Olympic final in 9.55 seconds if he had not slowed down to showboat.

"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 his coach say that the Jamaican could have run 9.52 seconds.

"We saw the final on television and then spent the whole weekend researching," Eriksen said.