As of 2012 he has participated in every edition of the Olympics since 2000 and has won six World and seven European Championship medals in individual and team events, including his junior bronze from 1993.

[1] He took up sport shooting in 1985 and moved to Lviv in what is now Ukraine in 1990, after his parents were unable to pay the bribe to get him into the Armenian State Institute of Physical Culture.

There he entered a local infantry school[2][3] and participated in his first major international tournament, the European Junior Championships in Arnhem, Netherlands, where he placed 4th in the 10 metre air rifle event.

[3] In 2008, upon returning from a World Cup event in Munich, Germany, Ayvazyan was detained by Ukrainian customs for having an unregistered gun and was placed under suspicion of weapons smuggling.

Half of the team was called in for questioning and, after going through two courts and losing significant training time during their final preparations for the 2008 Summer Olympics, it was eventually determined that the guns were all legally registered and that the evidence suggesting otherwise was planted in an attempt to discredit the head coach.

[3] Ayvazyan won a silver medal in the 10 metre air rifle category at a 2009 World Cup event the last time, as of 2012, that he finished on the podium as an individual at a major international tournament.