On February 4, 2012, at the Grand Slam tournament in Paris, Davtyan was seventh. After that, at the 2012 European Judo Championships in Chelyabinsk, Davtyan won a silver medal. In June, at the World Cup held in Prague, Davtyan came in second. At the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Davtyan knocked out German Tobias Englmaier, Azeri Ilgar Mushkiyev and Kazakh Yerkebulan Kossayev. In the fight for the semi-finals, Davtyan narrowly lost to Italian Elio Verde. After this, Davtyan had the opportunity to compete for the Olympic bronze medal, but controversially lost to Frenchman Sofiane Milous and took seventh place. According to Karen Simonyan, Davtyan's coach, there were interference during his matches. He revealed Davtyan performed throws which should have been scored as a ‘yuko’ (a throw that places the opponent onto his side), but this did not happen. Also, Davtyan was groundlessly given a second warning, which gave a point to the opponent and Davtyan lost.