2013–2014: World 5000 m bronze in Moscow At age 21, Almaz won a bronze medal in the
5000 metres at the
2013 World Championships in Athletics held in
Moscow, Russia. At the
2014 African Championships in
Marrakesh, she defeated favourite
Genzebe Dibaba to take the title in a championship record time of 15:32.72. One month later at the
Continental Cup also held in Marrakesh, she won the 5000 m by over 24 seconds.
2015: World 5000 m champion in Beijing in
Beijing, Almaz won her first world title with a 5000 m victory. In May 2015, Almaz ran a personal best of 14:14.32 over 5000 m at the
Diamond League meeting in
Shanghai, China, improving significantly upon her previous personal best of 14:25.84 set in 2013 in
Paris. Her win was named the Performance of the Championships by World Athletics. In her final race of the season, Almaz set a new 3000 m meeting record of 8:22.34 to beat Tirunesh Dibaba at the
Zurich Diamond League.
2016: Rio Olympic 10,000 m champion with a world record, bronze at 5000 m Almaz opened her season by winning over 3000 m at the
Doha Diamond League on the 6 May, running a time of 8:23.11 which narrowly missed her personal best. On 2 June 2016, Almaz set a new personal best in the 5000 m in a time of 14:12.59 at the
Rome Diamond League. This made her the second fastest woman ever at this distance, behind only Tirunesh Dibaba's world record of 14:11.15, and established a new circuit record. Later that month, she ran the
10,000 metres competitively for the first time at the Ethiopian Olympic trials in
Hengelo, Netherlands. She posted the fastest ever debut time of 30:07.00, defeating Tirunesh Dibaba and moving up to eighth on the world all-time list. . At the
2016 Summer Olympics held in August in
Rio de Janeiro, Almaz set a world record of 29:17.45 in the
10,000 metres, topping Chinese athlete
Wang Junxia's 23-year-old world record by 14 seconds. No one previously had run within 22 seconds of Wang's record. The 10,000 metres was already an extremely fast race when Ayana broke away with 12 laps to go. Second-placed
Vivian Cheruiyot of Kenya finished just a second shy of Wang's record and double Olympic 10,000 metres champion Tirunesh Dibaba earned the bronze medal with a 12 seconds improvement on her personal best and the fourth fastest time in history. Multiple national records were set, and eighteen competitors set personal bests. The lax
drug testing regime in Ethiopia and the doping scandals that embroiled athletics before the Rio Olympics caused some to question whether Almaz had been doping. British commentators
Brendan Foster and
Paula Radcliffe, both former world record holders in distance events, were skeptical about Almaz's performance. In her post-race press conference, Almaz said her time was purely the outcome of hard training. On 9 September, in her first race since the Olympics, Almaz attempted to break Tirunesh Dibaba's 2008 5000 m world record of 14:11.15 at the
Brussels Diamond League. Despite a strong start, she fell short of breaking the record but did set a meeting record of 14:18.99.
2017: 10,000 m gold and 5000 m silver at the London World Championships in London. On 5 August 2017, Almaz secured a dominant victory as she won over 10,000 metres at the
World Championships in London with a world-leading 30:16.32, She ran her final 5,000 m in 14:24.94, a time that would've placed her seventh on the
all-time 5,000 m lists at the time. Her win set the record for the biggest margin of victory over 10,000 m at a World Championship and was described as "one of the finest displays in women’s distance running history" by
Letsrun. Almaz made her debut over the
half marathon at the
New Delhi Half Marathon winning in a time of 1:07:12.
2018–present: Injuries, motherhood and comeback The Ethiopian distance running star took almost three years off due to injury problems and pregnancy. Her only race during this time was at the
2019 Prefontaine Classic where she placed 18th over 3,000 m in a time of 8:57.16. Almaz started regularly competing again from April 2022. On 16 October 2022, the 30-year-old made the fastest ever women's
marathon debut of 2:17:20 at the
Amsterdam Marathon to win the race and defeat her old-time rival Genzebe Dibaba by 45 seconds. Almaz beat the course record by almost 40 seconds, setting a Dutch all-comers' record (best performance on country's soil) and putting her seventh on the
world all-time list at the time. In 2023, Almaz opened her season by winning the
Lisbon Half Marathon in a course record of 1:05:30. On 17 September, Almaz competed over the
10 mile distance for the first time by placing third at the
Dam tot Damloop in
Zaandam in 52:23. She set a new personal best for the marathon of 2:16:20 in finishing second behind
Worknesh Degefa at the
Valencia Marathon. ==Recognition==