Raised in a deprived area of Venezuela, Rojas was successful in other sports as a teenager but struggled to practice due to lack of resources.

[7][5] Her early coaches reflected that, despite being talented and persevering, Rojas could not have become a successful athlete if she had not left the country in 2015, as she would not have had access to food and medical treatment to stay healthy.

[8] Inspired by the Venezuelan delegation at the 2008 Summer Olympics, Rojas, a tall child, wanted to become a volleyball player, but there was no nearby team.

[8][9][10] Rojas was accepted to a specialist sports school and her stepfather, former boxer Pedro Zapata, told her to try athletics rather than volleyball.

[11] She was also encouraged to try athletics under coach Jesús "Tuqueque" Velásquez at the Simón Bolívar Sports Complex in Puerto la Cruz.

[8] Velásquez told AFP that, though the stadium was financed by the government at the time, Rojas and other young athletes had to help dig the sandpit where they could practice jumps, under a jujube tree.

[10] She has cited triple jumper Asnoldo Devonish, Venezuela's only athletics Olympic medalist prior to Rojas herself, as an inspiration in her development.

[18] In the 2013 season, she improved her personal best to 1.87 m (6 ft 1+1⁄2 in) with a high jump in Barquisimeto, taking the South American junior record.

[10] This year she won two international silver medals, at the 2013 Pan American Junior Athletics Championships (losing to Daniellys Garay on countback) and the Bolivarian Games.

[10] Aged 19, she won gold on her debut at the senior level with the triple jump title at the 2015 South American Championships.

[29] Since 2015, she has been coached by Cuban long jumper Iván Pedroso, to whom she sent a Facebook message after the social network's algorithm suggested she connect with him.

[2][47][48][49] Rojas started her 2022 season in the long jump, wanting to "make an impact in this event",[50] achieving a new indoor personal best and national record of 6.81 m (22 ft 4 in) in February.

[61] Rojas underwent surgery after suffering an Achilles injury during a training session in Spain in April 2024 and announced she would miss the Paris Olympics as a result.

[9][70] She often dyes her cropped hair in bright colours; she chose pale pink for the 2020 Olympics, saying it reflected hope and strength.

[45] She has thanked late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez for promoting fitness in Venezuela, which allowed impoverished citizens like herself to get into sports.

[71] After similarly praising Nicolás Maduro in a "guided if not forced" phone call following her success at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Rojas faced criticism in Venezuela.

[78] In May 2022, the government of the state of Aragua announced that it had partnered with local eco-sports product company Blackforce to build an Olympic-standard triple jump arena in Rojas's honor.

[90] She was nominated for the 2022 Laureus World Sports Award for Breakthrough of the Year, which was won by British tennis player Emma Raducanu.