It was a dismal Olympic finish for the blue-and-yellow men.
Martin Ponsiluoma, the gold medalist from the pursuit, fell behind immediately when he missed two shots in the first prone shooting. When he missed three more in the next shooting, the day was ruined for him.
Sebastian Samuelsson shot clean in the first shooting, but missed two shots in his second visit to the range - and so he too was more than a minute behind the leader. Jesper Nelin also did not have a good day in Antholz.
Afterwards, the Swedes were mainly frustrated by having had bad skis under their feet.
I needed 23 hits with these skis. You get completely drained when you have to fight for every single meter out there. It's frustrating, Nelin told TV4 Play.
Martin Ponsiluoma agreed:
I feel like we don't have the skis to fight today. We have no chance, that's all.
Shot clean
On the shooting range, there were also skiers who mastered the tricky winds of the day better than the Swedes.
Not least the Norwegian Johannes Dale-Skjevdal, who entered the final shooting in the lead without having missed a single shot.
He didn't flinch when gold was on the line. After a perfect shooting session, he crossed the finish line as the clear winner ahead of teammate Sturla Holm Lægreid, who leaves the Olympics with five medals - but no gold.
The bronze went to Frenchman Quentin Fillon Maillet.
Giacomel withdrew
Italian home-team star Tommaso Giacomel was in the lead after two shooting stages, but was forced to abandon the race due to stomach pain.
The best of the Swedes was Samuelsson, who finished 18th after four misses. Ponsiluoma finished 21st (seven misses) and Nelin 26th (seven misses).
The Swedish biathletes leave the Olympics with two medals - in addition to Ponsiluoma's gold, the bronze in the relay.
The Swedish women's biathlon team took silver in the relay and have all four skiers from that team in Saturday's mass start.
