Almaz won a bronze medal in the 5000 metres at the 2013 World Championships in Athletics in Moscow, Russia.
Almaz won her first senior 5000 metres title at the 2014 African Championships in Marrakech, defeating favourite Genzebe Dibaba in a championship record time of 15:32.72.
One month later at the IAAF Continental Cup in Marrakech, she won the 5000 metres by over 24 seconds.
In May 2015, Almaz ran a personal best of 14:14.32 over 5000 metres at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Shanghai, China, improving upon her previous personal best of 14:25.84 set in 2013 in Paris.
This made her the third fastest female athlete over that distance, behind compatriots Tirunesh Dibaba, the world record holder, and Meseret Defar.
At the 2015 IAAF World Championships in Beijing, she won the 5000 metres, beating bronze medalist Genzebe Dibaba by more than 17 seconds.
On 2 June 2016, Almaz ran 5000 metres in 14:12.59 at the Golden Gala meeting in Rome.
This made her the second fastest woman ever at this distance, behind only Tirunesh Dibaba’s world record of 14:11.15.
10,000 metres
She ran the 10,000 metres competitively for the first time at the June 2016 Ethiopian Olympic trials in Hengelo, Netherlands.
She posted the fastest ever debut time of 30:07 and defeated Tirunesh Dibaba.
At the 2016 Summer Olympics, she 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 in 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.
Fellow competitors reported that before the race, the Ethiopian was coughing and did not seem well. In her post-race press conference, Ayana said her time was purely the outcome of hard training.
On 5 August 2017, she won the 10,000 metres at the World Championships in London with a world-leading 30:16.32, before adding a silver for the 5000 metres eight days later. 2018–2022: Injuries, motherhood and comeback
The Ethiopian distance running star took three years off due to injury problems and pregnancy. Almaz started competing again from April 2022.
On 16 October 2022, she 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 set a course record by almost 40 seconds, Dutch all-comers’ record (best performance on country’s soil) and the seventh-best time in history.
Recognition
2016 – IAAF Female World Athlete of the Year.
Share This Post
