10 kilometres Sprint, Men

Mark Kirchner was the defending champion and had won the last three World Championships at the distance. He had been second in the 1992-93 seasonal World Cup, but had struggled with his shooting during the 1993-94 season. And shooting would be crucial in the short event as, among the leaders, only two biathletes had clean shooting rounds, and they would win the gold and silver medals. Sergey Chepikov had been third (1988) and fourth (1992) in this event at the last two Winter Olympics, but moved up to the gold here. Ricco Groß, the silver medalist, repeated his silver medal from Albertville. Kirchner missed two targets but also did not ski that well and placed 12th overall. For Chepikov this was his fifth Olympic biathlon medal, but only his second gold, and his first in an individual event. In 1998 he would compete at Nagano in cross-country skiing, but he returned to the biathlon, competing for Russia at the 2002 and 2006 Winter Olympics, and would add a sixth biathlon medal, a silver in the relay, in 2006.