The Men's 20 kilometre individual biathlon competition at the 1976 Winter Olympics was held on 6 February, at Seefeld.

[1][2] Defending world champion Heikki Ikola was among the leaders after the first shooting around, but he trailed Soviet Aleksandr Tikhonov, who set a torrid pace.

Tikhonov led by thirty seconds at the halfway point, despite missing a shot, and after shooting clear the third time, the Soviet was up by more than a minute on Ikola and Nikolay Kruglov, the worlds silver medalist.

However, at the final shot, Tikhonov collapsed, taking six penalty minutes to fall out of medal contention.

[1] Penalties refer to minutes added, as described above, not (necessarily) number of targets missed.