The 2008-09 Biathlon World Cup/Individual Men started at Wednesday, December 3, 2008, in Östersund and ended on Wednesday, March 11, 2009, in Vancouver at the pre-olympic Biathlon event. Defending titlist was Vincent Defrasne of France.

The 20 kilometres (12 mi) individual race is the oldest biathlon event; the distance is skied over five laps. The biathlete shoots four times at any shooting lane, in the order of prone, standing, prone, standing, totalling 20 targets. For each missed target a fixed penalty time, usually one minute, is added to the skiing time of the biathlete. Competitors' starts are staggered, normally by 30 seconds.

Medal	Athlete	Points[1]
Gold:	Vincent Defrasne	104
Silver:	Emil Hegle Svendsen	100
Bronze:	Halvard Hanevold	82

Event:	Gold:	Time	Silver:	Time	Bronze:	Time
Östersund details	Michael Greis  Germany	58:52.5 (0+1+0+0)	Alexander Os  Norway	59:43.0 (0+0+0+2)	Emil Hegle Svendsen  Norway	59:47.5 (0+2+0+0)
Hochfilzen details	Maxim Tchoudov  Russia	56:00.3 (0+1+0+0)	Ivan Tcherezov  Russia	56:47.9 (0+0+2+0)	Björn Ferry  Sweden	56:48.8 (0+0+1+0)
World Championships details	Ole Einar Bjørndalen  Norway	52:28.0 (0+0+2+1)	Christoph Stephan  Germany	52:42.1 (1+0+0+0)	Jakov Fak  Croatia	52:45.1 (0+0+0+1)
Vancouver details	Vincent Jay  France	49:53.9 (0+0+0+0)	Daniel Böhm  Germany	50:12.9 (0+1+0+0)	Jeremy Teela  United States	50:17.2 (0+1+0+0)

#	Name	ÖST	HOC	WCH	VAN	Total[2]
1.	Michael Greis	60	43	22	43	146
2	Ivan Tcherezov	30	54	36	22	120
3	Maxim Tchoudov	28	60	33	26	119
4	Ole Einar Bjørndalen	17	27	60	23	110
5	Christoph Sumann	34	38	24	28	100
6	Carl Johan Bergman	32	34	–	32	98
7	Daniel Mesotitsch	40	36	21	0	97
8	Vincent Jay	13	0	18	60	91
9	Tomasz Sikora	29	22	32	30	91
10	Andriy Deryzemlya	38	0	34	10	82
11	Alexander Os	54	10	13	0	77
12	Jakov Fak	0	26	48	0	74
13	Serguei Sednev	43	18	0	13	74
14	Björn Ferry	24	48	–	–	72
14	Emil Hegle Svendsen	48	24	–	–	72
16	Alexander Wolf	14	30	11	27	71
17	Frode Andresen	25	–	–	38	63
18	Vincent Defrasne	0	7	20	34	61
19	Michael Rösch	21	13	23	15	59
20	Olexander Bilanenko	2	31	25	0	58
21	Vyacheslav Derkach	31	8	–	16	55
22	Christoph Stephan	0	0	54	–	54
23	Daniel Böhm	–	–	–	54	54
24	Dominik Landertinger	15	–	38	–	53
25	Nikolay Kruglov	23	29	–	–	52
26	Alexander Syman	27	23	0	0	50
27	Jeremy Teela	0	0	0	48	48
28	Sergey Novikov	0	12	16	20	48
29	Simon Fourcade	0	–	43	4	47
30	Roman Dostál	20	1	26	–	47
31	David Ekholm	6	0	40	0	46
32	Halvard Hanevold	36	3	0	6	45
33	Tim Burke	–	0	27	18	45
34	Lowell Bailey	26	0	19	0	45
35	Mattias Nilsson	0	0	15	29	44
36	Simon Eder	–	0	–	40	40
37	Roman Pryma	0	40	0	0	40
38	Markus Windisch	11	0	29	0	40
39	Ronny Hafsas	0	–	–	36	36
40	Zdeněk Vítek	0	19	12	5	36
41	Martin Fourcade	–	5	28	0	33
42	Christian de Lorenzi	0	32	0	0	32
43	Hans Martin Gjedrem	–	21	–	11	32
44	Ivan Joller	0	0	–	31	31
45	Jaroslav Soukup	0	0	30	–	30
46	Roland Lessing	5	25	0	–	30
47	Toni Lang	0	28	–	–	28
48	Friedrich Pinter	19	0	0	9	28
49	Jean-Guillaume Béatrix	0	6	–	21	27
50	Andreas Birnbacher	10	17	–	–	27
51	Christian Martinelli	7	–	0	19	26
52	Michal Šlesingr	0	9	3	14	26
53	Evgeny Ustyugov	–	–	0	25	25
54	Arnd Peiffer	–	–	–	24	24
55	Lars Berger	16	–	7	0	23
56	Andrei Makoveev	22	0	–	0	22
57	Tomas Holubec	0	20	–	0	20
58	Daniel Graf	18	0	–	–	18
59	Simon Schempp	–	–	–	17	17
59	Sergey Naumik	–	–	17	–	17
61	Rustam Valiullin	3	0	14	0	17
62	Nicola Pozzi	0	16	0	–	16
63	Oleg Berezhnoy	0	15	–	–	15
64	Lois Habert	0	14	–	0	14
65	Robin Clegg	0	–	2	12	14
66	Sergey Sadovnikov	–	–	10	3	13
67	Janez Maric	0	12	0	0	12
68	Marek Matiasko	12	0	0	–	12
69	Maxim Maksimov	0	0	4	7	11
70	Jean Philippe Leguellec	0	2	0	8	10
71	Ondřej Moravec	9	0	–	0	9
72	Vladimir Iliev	0	0	9	–	9
73	Dias Keneshev	0	0	8	–	8
74	Hidenori Isa	8	0	0	–	8
75	Miroslav Matiaško	–	–	6	–	6
76	Krasimir Anev	0	0	5	–	5
77	Simon Hallenbarter	0	4	0	0	4
78	Kristaps Libietis	4	0	0	0	4
79	Thomas Frei	0	0	0	2	2
80	Pavol Hurajt	0	0	1	0	1
81	Ilmārs Bricis	1	–	0	–	1
82	Evgeny Abramenko	0	0	–	1	1