Feature Impact Analysis on Top Long-Jump Performances with Quantile Random Forest and Explainable AI Techniques

Fuente: arXiv
Enregistré dans:
Détails bibliographiques
Auteurs principaux: Gan, Qi, Clémençon, Stephan, El-Yacoubi, Mounîm A., Nguyen, Sao Mai, Fenaux, Eric, Jelassi, Ons
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
Sujets:
Accès en ligne:
Tags: Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
_version_ 1866909735864762368
author Gan, Qi
Clémençon, Stephan
El-Yacoubi, Mounîm A.
Nguyen, Sao Mai
Fenaux, Eric
Jelassi, Ons
author_facet Gan, Qi
Clémençon, Stephan
El-Yacoubi, Mounîm A.
Nguyen, Sao Mai
Fenaux, Eric
Jelassi, Ons
contents Biomechanical features have become important indicators for evaluating athletes' techniques. Traditionally, experts propose significant features and evaluate them using physics equations. However, the complexity of the human body and its movements makes it challenging to explicitly analyze the relationships between some features and athletes' final performance. With advancements in modern machine learning and statistics, data analytics methods have gained increasing importance in sports analytics. In this study, we leverage machine learning models to analyze expert-proposed biomechanical features from the finals of long jump competitions in the World Championships. The objectives of the analysis include identifying the most important features contributing to top-performing jumps and exploring the combined effects of these key features. Using quantile regression, we model the relationship between the biomechanical feature set and the target variable (effective distance), with a particular focus on elite-level jumps. To interpret the model, we apply SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) alongside Partial Dependence Plots (PDPs) and Individual Conditional Expectation (ICE) plots. The findings reveal that, beyond the well-documented velocity-related features, specific technical aspects also play a pivotal role. For male athletes, the angle of the knee of the supporting leg before take-off is identified as a key factor for achieving top 10% performance in our dataset, with angles greater than 169°contributing significantly to jump performance. In contrast, for female athletes, the landing pose and approach step technique emerge as the most critical features influencing top 10% performances, alongside velocity. This study establishes a framework for analyzing the impact of various features on athletic performance, with a particular emphasis on top-performing events.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_09810
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Feature Impact Analysis on Top Long-Jump Performances with Quantile Random Forest and Explainable AI Techniques
Gan, Qi
Clémençon, Stephan
El-Yacoubi, Mounîm A.
Nguyen, Sao Mai
Fenaux, Eric
Jelassi, Ons
Machine Learning
Applications
Biomechanical features have become important indicators for evaluating athletes' techniques. Traditionally, experts propose significant features and evaluate them using physics equations. However, the complexity of the human body and its movements makes it challenging to explicitly analyze the relationships between some features and athletes' final performance. With advancements in modern machine learning and statistics, data analytics methods have gained increasing importance in sports analytics. In this study, we leverage machine learning models to analyze expert-proposed biomechanical features from the finals of long jump competitions in the World Championships. The objectives of the analysis include identifying the most important features contributing to top-performing jumps and exploring the combined effects of these key features. Using quantile regression, we model the relationship between the biomechanical feature set and the target variable (effective distance), with a particular focus on elite-level jumps. To interpret the model, we apply SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) alongside Partial Dependence Plots (PDPs) and Individual Conditional Expectation (ICE) plots. The findings reveal that, beyond the well-documented velocity-related features, specific technical aspects also play a pivotal role. For male athletes, the angle of the knee of the supporting leg before take-off is identified as a key factor for achieving top 10% performance in our dataset, with angles greater than 169°contributing significantly to jump performance. In contrast, for female athletes, the landing pose and approach step technique emerge as the most critical features influencing top 10% performances, alongside velocity. This study establishes a framework for analyzing the impact of various features on athletic performance, with a particular emphasis on top-performing events.
title Feature Impact Analysis on Top Long-Jump Performances with Quantile Random Forest and Explainable AI Techniques
topic Machine Learning
Applications
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.09810