The German biathlon men were not able to repeat the gold coup of Olympic champion Denise Herrmann in the individual.
On Tuesday in Zhangjiakou, Benedikt Doll was the best of the four German starters in sixth place and missed his chances of winning a medal with two missed shots.
The last one in standing deprived him of the possible silver medal.
Speedy Frenchman Quentin Fillon Maillet, despite two penalties, clinched the Olympic victory in the 20K race, where each missed shot carries a penalty minute, ahead of the clean-shooting Anton Smolski of Belarus, 14.8 seconds back.
Norway's star Johannes Thingnes Boe saved bronze after two missed targets, 31.1 seconds back.
He had won gold in the supreme discipline four years ago.
Doll was 1:07.1 minutes behind, Roman Rees was seventh with 1:21.6 minutes more than the winner with only one shooting error.
"I'm not sure if I should cry or be happy.
You can't really buy much from the placement," said Doll on ARD and chalked up his mistake in the first prone shooting, but was confident about the other races.
Rees was happy all round with his performance and wasn't upset that without a mistake, even precious metal could have been possible.
"I don't mourn that," Rees said.
Erik Lesser and Johannes Kühn had no chance after early mistakes.
Kühn withdrew from the medal race at the first shooting and missed two more after the first attempt.
As in the women's singles, the conditions were better because the wind wasn't blowing so hard.
In the end, the 30-year-old from Reit im Winkl, who had already been successful in the sprint in the World Cup this winter, even collected six penalty minutes and finished in 51st place.
Lesser, who won silver in Sochi eight years ago, made three mistakes in standing after a flawless start and thus also lost all chances.
After all, he only ranked 67th with five shooting errors.
Johannes Thingnes Bö, who had saved Norway the gold in the mixed relay, made a mistake while lying down and chased the Russian Maxim Zwetkow, who had started ahead of him, who shot flawlessly for a long time, but was not that fast on the track.
There the biathlon superstar from Norway overtook before the second shooting and tried to extend his lead.
Bö also made a mistake in the last shooting, but because Zwetkow missed the 20th shot, the Russian missed the chance of a possible Olympic victory.
In the end, Zwetkow was 3.8 seconds short of bronze.
Fillon Maillet was even faster.
The 29-year-old stormed to the top almost unnoticed, despite making two blunders on the shooting range.
In the mixed relay on Saturday he had to admit defeat in the final sprint.
Smolski was rewarded for his flawless shooting with the silver medal – Doll could have done that too.