The 31st Biathlon World Championships were held in 1996 for the third time in Ruhpolding, Germany.^[1]

Men's results

20 km individual

Medal	Name	Nation	Penalties	Result
	Sergei Tarasov	RUS		53:05.4
	Vladimir Drachev	RUS		53:49.9
	Vadim Sashurin	BLR		54:38.3

10 km sprint

Medal	Name	Nation	Penalties	Result
	Vladimir Drachev	RUS		26:52.3
	Viktor Maigourov	RUS
	René Cattarinussi	ITA

Team event

Medal	Name	Nation	Penalties	Result
	Belarus Vadim Sashurin Oleg Ryzhenkov Alexandr Popov Petr Ivashko	BLR		26:05.6
	Russia Viktor Maigourov Vladimir Drachev Pavel Muslimov Sergei Rozhkov	RUS
	Italy René Cattarinussi Pieralberto Carrara Patrick Favre Hubert Leitgeb	ITA

4 × 7.5 km relay

Medal	Name	Nation	Penalties	Result
	Russia Viktor Maigourov Vladimir Drachev Sergei Tarasov Alexei Kobelev	RUS		1:19:50.8
	Germany Ricco Groß Peter Sendel Frank Luck Sven Fischer	GER
	Belarus Alexei Aidarov Oleg Ryzhenkov Vadim Sashurin Alexandr Popov	BLR

Women's results

15 km individual

Medal	Name	Nation	Penalties	Result
	Emmanuelle Claret	FRA		46:43.1
	Olga Melnik	RUS
	Olena Petrova	UKR

7.5 km sprint

Medal	Name	Nation	Penalties	Result
	Olga Romasko	RUS		22:30.5
	Ann-Elen Skjelbreid	NOR
	Magdalena Forsberg	SWE

Team event

Medal	Name	Nation	Penalties	Result
	Germany Katrin Apel Petra Behle Uschi Disl Simone Greiner-Petter-Memm	GER		23:23.6
	Ukraine Tetyana Vodopyanova Olena Petrova Olena Zubrilova Nina Lemesh	UKR
	France Anne Briand Corinne Niogret Florence Baverel-Robert Emmanuelle Claret	FRA

4 × 7.5 km relay

Medal	Name	Nation	Penalties	Result
	Germany Uschi Disl Simone Greiner-Petter-Memm Katrin Apel Petra Behle	GER		1:33:59.8
	France Corinne Niogret Florence Baverel-Robert Emmanuelle Claret Anne Briand	FRA
	Ukraine Tetyana Vodopyanova Olena Petrova Olena Zubrilova Valentina Tserbe-Nessina	UKR

Medal table

Place	Nation				Total
1	Russia	4	4	0	8
2	Germany	2	1	0	3
3	France	1	1	1	3
4	Belarus	1	0	2	3
5	Ukraine	0	1	2	3
6	Norway	0	1	0	1
7	Italy	0	0	2	2
8	Sweden	0	0	1	1