Bronze medals in three of the four World Cup events so far this season gave Sweden real medal hopes, which only strengthened after gold for Martin Ponsiluoma in the 12.5km pursuit.
The pack were bunched up until the first shoot, where Germany's Justus Strelow shot perfectly to build a healthy lead, but issues at the first standing shoot saw him drop back, as Norway's Martin Uldal took the lead, ahead of Finland's Olli Hiidensalo.
At the first exchange, Uldal handed over to inidividual champion Johan-Olov Botn almost 15 seconds clear of Finland, who led a small group containing Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and Ukraine.
But a disastrous first shoot for Botn saw him go from 18 seconds clear, to 26 seconds down and in eighth place, while David Zobel of Germany and Sweden's Jesper Nelin used their accuracy to head the field.
However, a remarkable second leg from Emilian Jacquelin took France from struggling at the back to the lead as the race approached the halfway mark. Just one miss from the Frenchman allowed him to stay in front at the fourth shoot, with Sweden and Finland chasing hard.
Jacquelin had taken France from 20th at the first handover to first at halfway, but his team's lead was only half a second over Finland, as Nelin handed over to Ponsiluoma.
A three-skier group of Ponsiluoma, sprint champion Quentin Fillon Maillet and Jimi Klemettinen had a 20-second lead over the rest early in the third leg, but that evaporated at the first shoot, as the Frenchman did enough to hang on, while poor shoots from the Swede and Finn saw Norway overtake them.
Key misses on the standing shoot saw Fillon Maillet lose the lead, as a perfect Ponsiluoma took a narrow lead. At the final handover, France, Sweden and Norway made their changes almost in a line.
The three remained locked together until the first shoot, where Eric Perrot of France went perfect, putting him ahead of Norway's Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen, who missed once, and Sweden's Sebastian Samuelsson, who missed twice and lost a chunk of time.
At the final shoot, one French miss and 100% accuracy from Christiansen meant just 8.5 seconds separated the top two, as the Norwegian chased hard.
But Perrot did enough in the final kilometres, crossing the line in 1:19:55.2, to beat Norway by nearly 10 seconds, a small margin in biathlon relays, to take a third biathlon gold across men's and women's events at Milan-Cortina 2026.
Germany recovered to finish fourth, clear of the USA, Czechia and Finland.