Rosina Randafiarison (born 29 December 1999) is a Malagasy weightlifter. She won the silver medal in the women's 45 kg event at the 2023 World Weightlifting Championships, becoming the first athlete from Madagascar to win a World Championships medal in an Olympic sport. She also won silver medals in the individual snatch and clean and jerk at the championships.
An African Games gold medallist and multiple African champion, Randafiarison has competed internationally in the 45 kg, 48 kg and 49 kg categories. She represented Madagascar at the 2024 Summer Olympics, where she finished tenth in the women's 49 kg event and set African records in both lifts and the combined total. She was one of Madagascar's flag-bearers at both the opening and closing ceremonies.
Originally from Mahajanga, Randafiarison began weightlifting at the age of 15 and later moved to Antananarivo to join the national team. She was appointed a knight of Madagascar's National Order of Merit in 2022.
Biography Randafiarison was born on 29 December 1999 in Mahajanga, also known as Majunga. She began weightlifting at the age of 15 after her father told her about a local gym. She liked the gym's atmosphere and began entering competitions. She later moved to Antananarivo to continue training and join the national team. In a 2024 interview with Svenska Dagbladet, she recalled initially feeling out of place among the muscular men training at the gym, but said that she soon became comfortable. She added that her friends were surprised by her taking up the sport and joked with her that weightlifting would make her look like a man.
She paused her studies at Madagascar's national distance education centre in Mahajanga to concentrate on weightlifting. As of April 2020, she planned to resume her education. By October 2023, she was studying communication. She is married to Claudio Fanantenana Randrianavalona, who is also a weightlifter. He was a gold medallist at the 2023 Indian Ocean Island Games.
Weightlifting career Early career At the 2016 African Weightlifting Championships in Yaoundé, Cameroon, Randafiarison competed in the women's 48 kg category. She won bronze in the snatch with a lift of 62 kg and finished fourth overall with a combined total of 137 kg. At the following year's African championships in Vacoas, Mauritius, she won silver in the snatch, clean and jerk, and total. Her best lifts were 60 kg and 70 kg respectively, giving her a total of 130 kg behind Roilya Ranaivosoa of Mauritius who had a total of 171 kg. In December 2018, Randafiarison won the women's 45 kg event at the IWF International Solidarity Championships with a total of 140 kg.
Randafiarison won the women's 45 kg title at the African championships in Cairo in April 2019. She took gold in all three events with a 70 kg snatch, an 80 kg clean and jerk and a 150 kg total. Her snatch and total lifts at the championships were recognised as junior women's African records. Her snatch result improved the African record from 67 kg to 70 kg.
She also won three gold medals at the 2019 Indian Ocean Island Games in Mauritius. Later that year, she won three gold medals in the same category at the 2019 African Games in Rabat, Morocco. She lifted 70 kg in the snatch and 85 kg in the clean and jerk for a total of 155 kg. In September, she won the 49 kg category at the African Junior Championships in Kampala, Uganda, with a total of 157 kg. At the World Championships in Pattaya, Thailand, in September, she totalled 155 kg and finished eighth in the women's 45 kg event.
Randafiarison won the women's 45 kg event at the African Championship (Zone 3) in November 2019 with a 71 kg snatch and an 85 kg clean and jerk. Her snatch and 156 kg total were African senior records. She finished 2019 with 16 continental and regional gold medals. She called for Madagascar to provide better rewards, financial compensation and support for athletes' futures.
Randafiarison identified qualification for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as her main goal. Up to the COVID-19 lockdown in April 2020, she trained under the stands at Mahamasina Municipal Stadium in Antananarivo. During the lockdown, she continued training for three hours a day at home, and expressed her disappointment at the disruption to her competition plans while saying that she intended to persevere.
In a May 2021 article, Le Mauricien identified Randafiarison as Ranaivosoa's closest African challenger for an Olympic place in the 49 kg category. Randafiarison won another three gold medals at the 2021 African Weightlifting Championships, 45 kg class, in Nairobi. The championships formed part of the qualification process for the postponed Tokyo Olympics. Ranaivosoa's qualification as Africa's representative for the Tokyo Games at 49 kg was confirmed in June. Randafiarison did not compete in Tokyo.
She was appointed a knight of Madagascar's National Order of Merit by President Andry Rajoelina, in August 2022, in recognition of her success at the 2021 African championships. At the 2022 World Weightlifting Championships in Bogotá, she competed at 49 kg. She recorded a 71 kg snatch but failed all three clean and jerk attempts at 91 kg and so did not register a combined total. In a 2023 interview with Radio France Internationale, Randafiarison described 2022 as a difficult year in which repeated failures had led her to consider abandoning weightlifting. She mentioned that encouragement from the national federation president had helped her to persevere.
2023: World silver medal In preparation for the 2023 Indian Ocean Island Games and World Championships, Randafiarison and her three national team-mates attended a four-month training camp in China. At the Indian Ocean Island Games in Madagascar, Randafiarison won three gold medals in the women's 45 kg category.
In September, she competed in the same category at the World Championships in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Her final snatch of 77 kg secured silver in that discipline. She added a 93 kg clean and jerk, despite failing her last two attempts, to finish with a total of 170 kg. This placed her second behind Thailand's Siriwimon Pramongkhol, who totalled 179 kg; Cansu Bektaş of Turkey was third with 162 kg. Randafiarison's three silver medals were Madagascar's first World Championships medals in an Olympic sport. Her total was 5 kg higher than the 165 kg she had lifted at the Island Games. Her performance also established an African record in the 45 kg category.
In an interview with the Malagasy newspaper Les Nouvelles after the championships, Randafiarison said that she had wanted to add a world title to her continental and Indian Ocean successes. She attributed her performance to her training, the recent Island Games and the support of her team. Although pleased with the medals, she said that she had been unprepared for the attention that followed. She regarded the result as a step forward in her physical and mental development and continued to seek Olympic qualification.
In October, she told RFI that the national weightlifting team had no dedicated training facility. She followed her coach's programme at home twice a day and used Antananarivo's Arena Fitness gym for lifts requiring weights unavailable at home. Because the women's 45 kg category was not included in the 2024 Paris Olympics programme, Randafiarison sought qualification at 49 kg. At the IWF Grand Prix in Doha in December 2023, she totalled 155 kg, below her result in Riyadh despite competing at a higher body weight. She said that gaining weight had made movement more difficult. Her coach, Éric Herman Andriantsitohaina, said that she needed more time to adapt to the heavier category.
2024: Olympics Randafiarison won the 49 kg title at the African championships in Ismailia, Egypt in February 2024, with a 74 kg snatch, a 95 kg clean and jerk and a 169 kg total. In the 2024 interview with Svenska Dagbladet, she said that she had been eating six large meals a day, including substantial amounts of porridge, to gain weight for the 49 kg category. She finished the Olympic qualification period with a best total of 172 kg. Following the IWF World Cup in Phuket in April, she secured the continental qualification place. This allocation went to the highest-ranked athlete from a continent unrepresented among the top ten qualifiers. Randafiarison finished 1 kg ahead of Papua New Guinea's Dika Toua in the contest for that place. Randafiarison received an Olympic Solidarity scholarship for the Paris Games. Her qualification was formally confirmed by the International Weightlifting Federation on 21 June 2024.
In Madagascar, she prepared at Training Box in Ankorondrano, focusing on physical conditioning and technique. In July 2024, she attended a two-week training camp in Besançon, France, alongside other African weightlifters. She trained at La Française de Besançon with coach Tojo Andriantsitohaina. Before the competition, she said that she aimed to improve her personal best and break the African record.
In August 2024, she became the third woman to represent Madagascar in weightlifting at the Olympics, following Nathalia Rakotondramanana in 2012 and Elisa Vania Ravololoniaina in 2016. She competed in the women's 49kg event at the Summer Olympics held in Paris, France. She set three African records in the snatch (80 kg), clean and jerk (100 kg), and total (180 kg), finishing in 10th place.
She was a flagbearer for Madagascar at the 2024 Summer Olympics Parade of Nations at the start of the games and for the parade of flagbearers at the closing ceremony. According to Harinelina Randriamanarivo, secretary-general of the Malagasy Olympic Committee, Randafiarison was selected as an opening-ceremony flag-bearer because she was the first Malagasy athlete to qualify for the Games, in accordance with the committee's rules.
Since the 2024 Olympics At the 2024 World Weightlifting Championships in Manama, Bahrain, Randafiarison returned to the 45 kg category. She failed all three snatch attempts at 73 kg and did not record a total. In December that year, she retained the Malagasy national title at 49 kg; she said that she was still recovering from competing at the World Championships. Randafiarison was among 35 athletes who received victory bonuses in December 2024. The awards were presented by President Rajoelina at Iavoloha Palace in recognition of their championship medals.
In 2024, Madagascar had no national weightlifting centre, and Randafiarison trained at a gym in Antananarivo. In 2026, national coach Andriantsitohaina said that Randafiarison would resume her preparation for the 2028 Olympics. Midi Madagasikara reported that Randafiarison won the senior women's 60 kg title at the national championships held in July 2026, with a total of 156 kg.
Results In the table below, bold figures indicate the best successful lift; struck-through figures indicate failed attempts; a dash indicates that no result or rank was recorded. Separate snatch and clean and jerk rankings are not applicable at the Olympics.
+Selected weightlifting results. Year Venue Weight Snatch (kg) Clean and jerk (kg) Total Rank 1 2 3 Rank 1 2 3 Rank Summer Olympics 2024 Paris, France 49 kg 75 80 83 95 100 100 180 10 World Championships 2019 Pattaya, Thailand 45 kg 65 70 72 5 85 90 90 10 155 8 2022 Bogotá, Colombia 49 kg 71 75 75 29 91 91 91 — — — 2023 Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 45 kg 70 75 77 93 100 100 170 2024 Manama, Bahrain 45 kg 73 73 73 — — — — — — — IWF World Cup 2024 Phuket, Thailand 49 kg 75 75 77 21 95 100 100 18 172 16 African Games 2019 Rabat, Morocco 45 kg 65 70 73 80 85 85 155 African Championships 2016 Yaoundé, Cameroon 48 kg 55 59 62 70 75 75 5 137 4 2017 Vacoas, Mauritius 48 kg 55 60 60 70 75 80 130 2019 Cairo, Egypt 45 kg 60 68 70 80 85 85 150 2021 Nairobi, Kenya 45 kg 55 65 65 70 80 80 135 2024 Ismailia, Egypt 49 kg 70 74 78 90 95 100 169
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External links
newsmada.com interview