Heat 6 | | time | | gap | L | ag | Rk | 1. Rainer Henkel | West Germany | 3:52.98 | | | - | 22 | 1. | 4. Vladimir Salnikov | Soviet Union | 3:53.62 | | +0.64s | - | 26 | 2. | 5. Franck Iacono | France | 3:53.76 | | +0.78s | - | 20 | 3. | 13.Carlos Scanavino | Uruguay | 3:55.99 | | +3.01s | - | 22 | 4. | 30.Segev Porat | Israel | 4:06.64 | | +13.66s | - | | 5. | -. Valentin Kochanov | Bulgaria | DNS | | | - | | | -. Magnus Olafsson | Iceland | DNS | | | - | | |
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Heat 5 | | time | | gap | L | ag | Rk | 3. Daniel Jorgensen | United States | 3:53.61 | | +0.63s | - | 18 | 1. | 9. Juan Carlos Vallejo | Spain | 3:55.39 | | +2.41s | - | 23 | 2. | 22.Duncan Armstrong | Australia | 4:01.24 | | +8.26s | - | 18 | 3. | 23.Scott Flowers | Canada | 4:01.35 | | +8.37s | - | | 4. | 27.Eduardo De Poll | Brazil | 4:04.86 | | +11.88s | - | | 5. | 29.Massimo Trevisan | Italy | 4:06.26 | | +13.28s | - | 18 | 6. | 34.Claus Hansen | Denmark | 4:09.77 | | +16.79s | - | | 7. | 42.Wu-Ming Hsun | Chinese Taipei | 4:18.54 | | +25.56s | - | | 8. |
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