Validation of MediaPipe Pose for Sprint Time Measurement at 5, 10, and 20 Meters Against a Photocell System

Accurate measurement of sprint time is essential in sports science and performance monitoring. Photocell timing systems are widely regarded as the gold standard, but they are costly and require specialized equipment. Recent advances in computer vision, such as pose estimation frameworks like OpenPose and MediaPipe Pose, enable motion analysis from standard smartphone video recordings. This study aimed to validate MediaPipe-based sprint time measurement against a photocell system across three distances commonly used in field testing: 5 m, 10 m, and 20 m. Twenty physically active adults performed repeated sprints, which were simultaneously recorded using photocells and a smartphone camera. Virtual start and finish lines were drawn on the video frame, and sprint time was defined as the frame difference between line-crossing events of body landmarks. Results demonstrated strong validity, with correlations above 0.95 for all distances. Mean absolute error (MAE) was highest for 5 m sprints (0.04 ± 0.06 s, ≈3% of total time), but decreased at 10 m (0.03 ± 0.05 s, ≈1.5%) and 20 m (0.03 ± 0.05 s, ≈1%). Bland–Altman analysis indicated minimal systematic bias. These findings suggest that MediaPipe provides a feasible, low-cost alternative for sprint timing, particularly reliable for distances ≥10 m, while caution is advised for very short sprints.