Rosina Randafiarison

Rosina Randafiarison (born 29 December 1999) is a weightlifter from Madagascar. She is the silver medalist of 2023 World Championships and the first ever world medalist in any Olympic sport from Madagascar.

Career

Randafiarison took up weightlifting at the age of 15 in her home town of Majunga. Her father encouraged her to start training at a local gym. Later, she moved to Antananarivo for training.

Her snatch and total lifts at the 2019 African Championship were recognised as Junior Women's African Records.

The last opportunity for Madagascar to ensure the qualification of its weightlifters for the Tokyo Olympics was at the African Championship Zone 3 (South Zone for juniors) event in November 2019. Jean Alex Harinelina Randriamanarivo, the president of the Madagascan weightlifting federation (Fédération Malgache d'Haltérophilie, de musculation et culturisme), identified Randafiarison as a key part of the team. At the 2019 African Games, Randafiarison won the gold. She won a total of 16 continental and regional gold medals in 2019.

In September 2023, Randafiarison competed in the women's 45 kg at the 2023 World Weightlifting Championships. She won silver medals in the snatch and clean & jerk events, and total, becoming the first medalist for Madagascar in any Olympics discipline at the world championship level.

Randafiarison secured one of the top ten slots in her weight divisions based on the IWF Olympic Qualification Rankings, and qualified for the 2024 Summer Olympics. 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, when 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 & 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.

She is coached at the national level by Thomas d'Aquin Rakotoarison. Madagascar does not have a national weightlifting centre; she trains at a gym in Antananarivo.

Her husband is Claudio Fanantenana Randrianavalona, who was the 2019 Madagascar champion in snatch, clean and jerk, and overall, and a gold medalist at the 2023 Indian Ocean Island Games.

Achievements

External links

• at the International Weightlifting Federation
• at the International Weightlifting Results Project
• at Olympics.com
• at Olympedia
• at InterSportStats
• on Instagram
• (in French)