Soviet Hockey Team Is Reprimanded for Losses in World Championships

The coaches and players of the Soviet Union national hockey team have been severely reprimanded for training and discipline failures that may have led to two losses during this year’s World Championships in Prague, a newspaper reported in Moscow.

The sports daily Sovietsky Sport publicized the reprimands in a report on a meeting of the State Sports Committee that evidently was convened to discuss the defeat in Prague.

The heavily favored Soviets, who had won the world championship every year since 1977, finished in third place after losing to Czechoslovakia, 2-1, and to Canada, 3-1, in the medal round.

Sovietsky Sport said chief national trainer Viktor Tikhonov and his assistant, V. Yurzinov, were reprimanded for “serious miscalculations” in team selection, training and tactics.

Eric Heiden, winner of five speed skating gold medals at the 1980 Winter Olympics, won a $100,000 professional bicycling race in Philadelphia.

Heiden, of Woodside, Calif., took the lead from Jesper Worre and Jans Veggerbe, both members of the Danish national team, on the approach to the finish line. He finished with a time of 6 hours 26 minutes 39 seconds over the 156-mile course through the streets of Philadelphia.

His winning margin of five yards earned him $20,000 in his first professional race.

Brazil qualified for the World Cup soccer tournament next year in Mexico by tying Paraguay, 1-1, at Rio de Janeiro.

Latin America has five berths of 22 in the World Cup. As host, Mexico is already qualified. Uruguay has already won its elimination round. Peru defeated Argentina, 1-0, Sunday in Lima and they will meet again next Sunday in Buenos Aires.

Venezuela was eliminated from qualifying when it was held to a 2-2 tie by Colombia in San Cristobal, Venezuela.

Competition for national championships in rifle, pistol, shotgun and air-gun shooting begins today and continues through July 6 at the Prado Tiro Ranges in Chino.

Six hundred men and women will compete for titles in 16 shooting events in the U.S. International Shooting Championships. They also will be competing for positions on the U.S. shooting team, which will compete in the 1985 World Moving Target Championships Sept. 1-10 in Montecatini, Italy, and the Confederation of the Americas Championships Oct. 27-Nov. 2 at Ft. Benning, Ga.

The National Basketball Assn. said it will consider two alternatives to its controversial new draft lottery system.

One change would have five teams drafting in inverse order after two names are drawn.

The other change would set up a weighted lottery in which the worst team would have seven slips in the drum; the sixth team would have six slips, and so on, with the team with the seventh worst record having one slip.

Don Prudhomme of Granada Hills, Calif. won his fourth Funny Car Championship at Brainerd International Raceway at Brainerd, Minn.

Prudhomme defeated Mark Oswald of Cincinnati in the final round with an elapsed time in the quarter-mile of 5.76 seconds and a speed of 257.87 m.p.h.