WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump says that Jerry West, the pro basketball great, will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

"The Great Jerry West will be receiving our Nation's highest civilian honor, The Presidential Medal of Freedom, for his outstanding career, both on and off the court," according to the Trump tweet Saturday night.

West, a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, played guard for the Los Angeles Lakers and played college basketball at West Virginia University. No date was announced for the award for the 81-year-old West, who also has worked as a basketball executive.

Trump recently gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to golfing great Tiger Woods and plans to give one later this month to Arthur Laffer, the economist known as a leading proponent of supply-side economics.

NEW YORK -- In a season that has so far been defined by the contributions of a medley of once mostly unknown New York Yankees, it can be hard singling out one player. But nearly 20 homers into a season that isn't even 60 games old yet, here we are.

The big slugger whom general manager Brian Cashman calls "the Kraken" has been unleashed -- and he is having quite the impact.

If 2017 was the year of Aaron Judge on the Yankees' lunar calendar, and 2018 was the year of Giancarlo Stanton, then it's starting to look like it's safe to call -- even at this very early juncture -- 2019 the year of Gary Sanchez.

"The guy's got a really good swing, and it's been an impressive result this last May and June now -- these last six weeks -- he's been really hot," Yankees first baseman Luke Voit said. "He's probably one of the best power hitters in the game, and he's going to make you pay if you leave it up in the zone."

Actually, as Boston Red Sox starter Rick Porcello learned in the Yankees' 5-3 win in the Bronx on Saturday night, even if you don't leave a pitch up in the zone, Sanchez still can hurt you.

With a swing that was one part awkward, another part majestic, Sanchez proved yet again that his surprising yet historically strong start is no fluke. As long as he stays healthy, swings like the big one he had to help secure yet another Yankees series win show that he might be regarded as one of the game's top power hitters by season's end.

"When he gets locked in, and he's in a good position to hit and when he's healthy, he's just very, very dangerous," said Yankees veteran outfielder Brett Gardner.

It was in the bottom of the fifth on Saturday when, in a tie game, Sanchez reached all the way across home plate, connecting with an 84.4 mph Porcello slider that ultimately slid a couple of inches out of the strike zone. Just not far enough to escape Sanchez's swing.

The two-run homer put the Yankees out in front for good. It proved to be the game-winning hit that would give them their ninth straight series win. It's the first time since August 1998 that they've won that many consecutive series. The Yankees claimed their 24th World Series that season.

Because of how far off the plate Porcello's pitch was, and because of how slightly out in front of it Sanchez was, the Yankees catcher ended up making contact with one hand, muscling a powerful, opposite-field drive 403 feet into the Yankees bullpen beyond the wall in right-center. It was as impressive a home run as Sanchez has had all season, and that's before noting that he already has hit seven farther than 430 feet with two hands.

"Not many guys are capable of doing that," Gardner said. "Gary is one of the most talented hitters in the league, and he continues to find ways to impress us."

Rare feat of strength or not, New York manager Aaron Boone wasn't shocked to see the ball leave the field.

"Don't think anyone out there looking at me is surprised," Boone said, addressing reporters from his podium. "He's a special talent, and tremendous power, obviously -- to kind of reach out and flick that out one-handed shows that."

Sanchez considered the circumstances that led to his comparatively unorthodox swing to be quite normal.

"When I started swinging, it was in the strike zone and then kept on going out," Sanchez said through an interpreter. "That's how baseball is. Sometimes you're going to swing at pitches that are not going to be in the zone, and you're still going to be able to connect."

The homer was Sanchez's 18th this season. He launched it in just his 147th at-bat. Last year, he totaled 18 homers, and he hit them in 323 at-bats, while sporting a .186 batting average.

What has helped make the powerful, .264 hitting, .987 OPS-having Sanchez so improved at the plate this year?

His health.

While he did have a brief injured list stint due to a left calf strain earlier this season, Sanchez has had markedly better injury luck than he did in 2018. Much of his previous year was derailed by a pair of trips to the disabled list with groin strains. He also spent the season playing through a shoulder injury that ultimately required offseason surgery.

"Looking back at last year, I dealt with that and it was tough," Sanchez said. "I still thought that I was able to play with the discomfort in the shoulder, but that's not an excuse. You can never use that as an excuse, and it feels good right now."

Even if Sanchez doesn't like using his past health as a crutch, his teammates could see the limitations it still had on him.

"Last year was kind of a weird year for him," Voit said. "[But] he's raking right now, and it's really impressive. That's why I get so hyped.

"He's being Gary Sanchez. Release the Kraken, man."

It was Cashman who back in 2015 and 2016 initially started referring to Sanchez as the Kraken, a nod to the sea monster in the 1981 movie "Clash of the Titans." Since then, the nickname has stuck, and Sanchez has firmly embraced it.

One of two catchers since 1900 to hit 17 home runs before June 1, Sanchez inked his name in the history books on Wednesday when he launched one of his 430-plus-foot bombs off the San Diego Padres' Eric Lauer. With that blast, Sanchez joined Roy Campanella from 1953 as the only catchers in the past 119 years to have 17 or more homers before the start of June. (Ivan Rodriguez and Ozzie Virgil both had 16 before the start of June in 2000 and 1987, respectively.)

What also has made Sanchez's power-hitting run so special this season is that it has come at a time when the Yankees have been without sluggers Stanton, Judge, Didi Gregorius and Miguel Andujar, due to injuries. Aaron Hicks also missed the first month and a half of the season due to his own ailment that began in spring training. All five of those players hit 27 or more home runs last season.

"Gary has really stepped up and filled that void in the middle of the lineup that we've been missing lately," Gardner said. "So, when you're missing some important guys like that out of the middle of the lineup, obviously it's important to find guys to not necessarily fill those shoes, because they're pretty big shoes to fill, but just to step up and get the job done."

The Kraken has done all of that.

As the Yankees eye not only a series sweep of the Red Sox on Sunday and another intradivision series win this upcoming week at the Toronto Blue Jays, expect Sanchez to be right there continuing to contribute. To do that, he just has to stay on the field.

Jessica Ennis-Hill believes her fellow Briton can challenge the Olympic heptathlon champion after her strong showing in Götzis

After seeing Katarina Johnson-Thompson (pictured above) claim a dominant victory in the Götzis Hypo-Meeting heptathlon, Jessica Ennis-Hill says her fellow Briton is ready for the next challenge of taking on Olympic and world champion Nafissatou Thiam this summer.

Johnson-Thompson improved her personal best to a world-leading score of 6813 points at the prestigious multi-events competition in Austria last weekend, winning by 337 points ahead of Latvia’s Laura Ikauniece.

That mark consolidates the Commonwealth and world indoor champion’s third place on the UK heptathlon all-time list, with only British record-holder Ennis-Hill and Sydney Olympic champion Denise Lewis having ever scored higher thanks to their respective best tallies of 6955 and 6831 points.

“Absolutely incredible,” replied London 2012 Olympic champion Ennis-Hill when asked about Johnson-Thompson’s performance.

“She has started her season in the best way possible. A personal best score, she put some great performances together.

“She’s just holding that dominance there and the next challenge is to take on Thiam later on in the summer but I think she’s definitely ready for it.”

Britain’s world under-20 champion Niamh Emerson was also competing in Götzis and Ennis-Hill had visited the 20-year-old at her base in Loughborough in the lead-up to the competition.

Emerson was unable to prove what she might have been capable of, however, as the recurrence of a knee injury forced her to withdraw after two events.

“Obviously devastated for Niamh,” added Ennis-Hill, who was speaking with AW after her official race starter duties at the Vitality London 10,000.

“I went up to Loughborough to interview her a few weeks ago and I know she was very much looking forward to her first competition out there in Götzis but these things aren’t always meant to be.

“As a heptathlete you can have so many injuries and setbacks,” added the three-time world champion, who herself was forced to miss the 2008 Olympics because of injury.

“This is just part of her journey and hopefully she’ll go back home, recover well and prepare for the rest of the season.”

MADRID -- Defeat on the biggest stage can trigger two responses: The losers either allow the disappointment to drag them down to the realms of the also-rans, or use it as inspiration to go again and come back stronger.

Liverpool, having suffered a painful and comprehensive 3-1 defeat against Real Madrid in last season's Champions League final, took the latter option. The Anfield club invested wisely in the likes of Alisson and Fabinho and, having almost won the Premier League with 97 points, ended this campaign with a 2-0 victory over Tottenham Hotspur that delivered the club's sixth European Cup.

Tottenham face that same fork in the road, but there are too many question marks hanging over Mauricio Pochettino's team -- not least that of the manager's own future -- to suggest with any conviction that the North London outfit will follow Liverpool's example this summer. In the aftermath of this defeat, deep inside the Wanda Metropolitano, Pochettino was again careful not to banish the questions marks.

"I think it's not a moment now to talk too much," he said. "You can interpret things in different ways. After five years in Tottenham, it was so clear the project. Our ambition was amazing and the commitment of our players amazing, providing us with our first ever Champions League final. But now it's time to be calm, change our mind and have time to talk."

Pochettino has three years to run on his contract at Tottenham, but recent non-committal remarks about whether he will stay or go after five years in charge have created doubt where there needs to be absolute certainty.

If he does leave, then Tottenham will be back to the drawing board, but even if Pochettino can be persuaded to stay for another crack at turning the club into trophy winners, the job he faces will be a big one, both in terms of finance and ambition.

Tottenham must somehow square a circle that has seen initial projections of the club's new stadium costing £400 million, rise to an eventual £1 billion. They have to pay for the ground at the same time as investing in a squad that has not had a penny spent on it since Lucas Moura arrived from Paris Saint-Germain for £25m in January 2018.

Pochettino's ability as a coach has seen him work wonders overcoming that competitive disadvantage, guiding Tottenham to this final and a top-four finish in the Premier League once again. However, the lack of investment is why his line-up in Madrid featured two half-fit Harrys -- Kane and Winks -- and out-of-form right-back Kieran Trippier, whose dip since the World Cup last summer has seen him dropped from England's squad for next week's Nations League finals in Portugal.

"We looked at the qualities of our players, but it would have been incredible to have won this trophy because Tottenham prioritised their stadium and spent zero on transfers," Pochettino said. "We're not the smartest in the class but not the stupidest either."

- Marcotti: Journey for Liverpool's European champions is not over
- Liverpool ratings: 8/10 Alisson, Van Dijk set foundation for victory
- Tottenham ratings: 5/10 Kane, Alli struggle as Spurs fall short

Tottenham maximised every resource to reach the Champions League final, but if this run is to act as a springboard, rather than a high watermark, things have to change. They must spend to build, but also show the ambition that will convince the likes of Kane, Son Heung-Min and Dele Alli that they can win silverware.

Kane, who will turn 26 next month, is approaching the peak years of his career, yet the man who won the Golden Boot at last year's World Cup does not have a winners' medal of any description to his name.

Tottenham's homegrown poster-boy tasted the biggest stage as a runner-up in Madrid, albeit short of fitness following a seven-week injury layoff, and Kane has to decide whether he wants to fast-track himself to the winners' podium by following the likes of Gareth Bale and Luka Modric from North London to a club of Real Madrid's stature.

The same applies to Alli -- younger than Kane at 23 -- and Son, 26. Both have their admirers, even though Alli has had a disappointing season, and Tottenham could face a battle to convince both that they should reject interest from elsewhere to stay. Meanwhile, Christian Eriksen is refusing to sign a new contract to replace his current deal that expires in June 2020 and might be the first to move on.

One way to banish doubts over the futures of star players and manager would be for Daniel Levy to sanction the major spending required to maintain an upward trajectory. The chairman has never put the club's financial well-being in jeopardy, though, so if the numbers do not add up, big spending will not happen any time soon.

Liverpool never looked like being a team at the end of its journey last year, but it is hard to see how Tottenham can emulate them by bouncing back to win the Champions League in Istanbul 12 months from now. After the biggest night in club history, arguably their biggest summer lies ahead.

"We need to be clever now and, after a very painful game like this, it's about building for the next period of your life," Pochettino said. "Of course it's going to be tough."

DETROIT – Juan Pablo Montoya and Dane Cameron, co-drivers of the No. 6 Acura Team Penske ARX-05 DPi, accomplished something in Saturday’s Chevrolet Sports Car Classic that hadn’t been done since IMSA began racing on Detroit’s Belle Isle Park.

Before Saturday, General Motors race cars won their class in all nine IMSA races held on Belle Isle from 2007 through 2018, including overall victories from 2012 through last year.

On Saturday Montoya and Cameron came away with their second consecutive IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship victory in a tight, 100-minute battle on the 2.3-mile street circuit.

RELATED: Hawksworth & Heistand Stand Tall In Belle Isle Brawl

After claiming the Motul Pole Award in qualifying Friday, Montoya got a fantastic jump at the start to take the lead, which he held for the first 19 laps of what would be a 58-lap race before pitting under the second of the race’s five full-course caution periods to turn the car over to Cameron. Montoya’s stop turned the lead over to Tristan Nunez, who was on a different pit-stop strategy in the No. 77 Mazda Team Joest RT24-P DPi.

Following the ensuing restart, however, Cameron picked up where Montoya left off, taking the lead away from Nunez on the first green-flag lap. Cameron surrendered the lead for one more lap when he came in for his final pit stop but retook the lead on lap 35.

Cameron led the field to the green flag for the final restart with just under 22 minutes remaining, but he quickly had last year’s Detroit winner, Felipe Nasr in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi-V.R, right on his tail. Nasr filled Cameron’s mirrors all the way to the checkered flag, but never could get quite close enough as Cameron crossed the stripe .820 of a second ahead of the No. 31 to take the victory.

“Certainly, we’ll take that,” said Cameron, who won at Detroit in 2015 in the Whelen Engineering Corvette DP with then-co-driver Eric Curran. “It’s a little bit unexpected for us. Usually the street course is pretty good for the Cadillac, so we knew they were going to competitive here, but obviously we were looking for more of a podium than wins here and get some good points.

“I’m super excited to win here and get two in a row. Lots of people who get two wins in a row get championships, so hopefully that’s a good omen for the balance of the season.”

Cameron and Montoya also won last month’s Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. It was Acura’s second overall victory in Detroit, the first coming in the 2008 American Le Mans Series (ALMS) race on Belle Isle when James Rossiter and Franck Montagny won for Andretti-Green Racing.

It was Montoya’s fifth IMSA win (two WeatherTech Championship and three Grand-Am) and was Cameron’s 14th (12 WeatherTech Championship, one Grand-Am, one ALMS).

“To win in Detroit finally, it’s good,” said Montoya. “It’s nice to be here. It’s nice to be here with Acura – it’s an amazing program – and Team Penske. [Team owner] Roger [Penske]’s home race. I felt yesterday I did a really good job in qualifying. To convert that into a win, Dane did an amazing job out there today too. We did everything we needed to do again. We just need to keep doing that every week.”

The victory moved Cameron and Montoya into second in the WeatherTech Championship DPi standings, but Nasr and co-driver Pipo Derani slightly extended their lead to five, 152-147, with the runner-up result. The No. 31 duo came up just short of extending General Motors’ hometown win streak.

The run included back-to-back American Le Mans Series GT1 class wins by Corvette Racing in 2007 and 2008. Corvette Daytona Prototypes won overall in the GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series in 2012 and 2013, as well as IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship races from 2014 through 2016. Cadillac DPi race cars won in both 2017 and 2018.

Helio Castroneves and Ricky Taylor picked up their third podium result in five races this season and made it two Acura Team Penske DPis in the top three with a third-place showing. They are third in the DPi championship standings at the halfway point of the 10-race season for the DPi class, trailing Montoya and Cameron by just one point.

Simon Trummer and Stephen Simpson came home fourth in the No. 84 JDC-Miller Motorsports Cadillac DPi-V.R for their best result of the season to date. Misha Goikhberg and Tristan Vautier finished one spot behind their JDC-Miller teammates with a fifth-place showing in the No. 85 Cadillac DPi.

LEXINGTON, Ohio – Summer arrived in full force on Saturday at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for the Hoosier Racing Tire SCCA Super Tour, hosted by the Ohio Valley Region SCCA, where temperatures stretched into the upper 80s under a hot sun.

Michael Lavigne opened the afternoon with a win in his No. 42 Auto Re-Nu-It Auto Body Ford Mustang GT. Lavigne had to clear Rob Huffmaster’s Super Touring® Under class-winning and overall polesitting Honda S2000, then hold off the field again following an early caution period. Aaron Kaplan tried to make it a fight with his BMW M3, but Lavigne used the traffic to clear Kaplan again and take a 2.273-second win.

“That was a great race today,” Lavigne said. “Aaron finally made his move and got to me. We had good racing for a few laps and I put some distance on him. It was a real good day for us.”

Typically, with a few exceptions, the cross-country battles are reserved for the season-ending SCCA National Championship Runoffs. But a gang of talented Spec Racer Ford Gen3 drivers are barnstorming across the country this summer, with stops at Mid-Ohio, Road America and Watkins Glen. By the looks of it, they plan to pillage their East Coast hosts of all of their trophies.

San Francisco Region’s John Black held off Michigan’s Bobby Sak and his West Coast counterpart T.J. Acker to stand on top of the podium on Saturday. The trio were battling from flag-to-flag, along with road trip ringleader Mike Miserendino in fourth.

“That was a tough one,” Black said. “It was a real race, all the way to the last lap. We were two-wide there for a while. It was a heck of a race. We thought we’d come back and hit some really good tracks. We’ve been talking about it for a couple of years, and I guess it worked out!”

Kevin Ruck used his home track knowledge and his National Championship-winning F Production No. 73 Hoosier/Honda Acura Integra to take an overall win in a group three race that also included E Production, H Production, GT-Lite and B-Spec. Ruck and E Production winner Breton Williams were 17 seconds ahead of third overall Charlie Campbell in the Mid-Ohio sun.

“The track was real quick for the first five or six laps,” Ruck said. “I had a good race with Breton right at the start. It was a pretty big field with a huge speed disparity, so the second half of the race was a lot of where are you going to put your car and being predictable. That became the name of the game.”

Jim Drago held off a charging Brian Henderson in Spec Miata, with Jared Thomas and Jonathan Davis completing the top-four in a nose to tail battle. Drago started on pole and took care of business in the No. 2 East Street Racing Mazda Miata by 0.326-second over 12th starting Henderson. The race included a duel with Thomas, with hard racing and side-to-side contact on more than one occasion.

Daniel Richardson ran his “toughest race ever” in a battle with Steven Ott on his way to an American Sedan® win in the No. 5 Gentium Tech/Hoosier Chevrolet Camaro. Richardson was Ott’s driver coach when he got started five years ago, and the pair have maintained a tight friendship.

“There was a spin on the start and everyone went every direction they could,” Richardson said. “Steve got by me. He was flying and I got really lucky with some traffic. I got by him on the back straight and we raced nose to tail the entire race. Side by side, door to door, nonstop. We got by Andy McDermid at the end. It was the best race I’ve ever had in American Sedan.”

Saturday concluded with a participant party at Mid-Ohio’s Honda Pavilion, where volunteers, friends, drivers, crew and family ducked under the picnic shelter for food, drinks and door prizes. On Sunday, racing begins again at 8:40 a.m. ET with 21-lap or 35-minute races. Follow all the action live at www.scca.com/live.

Below are provisional race results from Saturday’s Hoosier SCCA Super Tour from Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course with Class: Name, Hometown, Region and Car.

-American Sedan: Daniel Richardson, Derwood, Md., Washington DC Region, Chevrolet Camaro
-B-Spec: Fritz Wilke, Chelsea, Mich., Detroit Region, Ford Fiesta
-E Production: Breton Williams, Clinton, Iowa, Great River Region, Mazda MX-5
-F Production: Kevin Ruck, Marysville, Ohio, Ohio Valley Region, Acura Integra
-H Production: Eric Vickerman, Howell, Mich., Detroit Region, Austin Healey Sprite
-Formula 500: David Lapham, Waterfod, Mich., New York Region, Novacar J-10
-Formula 1000: Yarin Stern, Austin, Texas, Lonestar Region, Griiip G1
-Formula Atlantic®: Ahsen Yelkin, Canfield, Ohio, Steel Cities Region, Swift 014/Toyota
-Formula Continental: Reece Everard, Lake Orion, Mich., Detroit Region, Van Dieman/Ford
-Formula Enterprises: Jim Libecco, Solon, Ohio, NEOhio Region, Formula Enterprises/Mazda
-Formula Enterprises 2: Liam Snyder, Southlake, Texas, Texas Region, Formula Enterprises/Mazda
-Formula F: Alex Scaler, Flemington, N.J., South Jersey Region, Mygale M13/Honda
-Formula Mazda: Owen McAllister, Mooresville, N.C., Texas Region, Formula Mazda
-Formula Vee: Andrew Whitston, Neenah, Wis., Milwaukee Region, Protoform P2/Volkswagen
-GT-1: Ryan McManus, Westfield Center, Ohio, NEOhio Region, Chevrolet Corvette
-GT-2: Aaron Quine, Wadsworth, Ohio, NEOhio Region, Chevrolet Camaro
-GT-3: Joe Kristensen, London, Ontario, Detroit Region, Honda Civic
-GT-Lite: Graham Fuller, Martinsburg, W.Va., Washington DC Region, Honda CRX
-GT-X: Larry Funk, Oberlin, Ohio, NEOhio Region, Ford FP350S
-Prototype 1: Gary Peck, Rockford, Ill., Blackhawk Valley Region, Stohr WF1
-Prototype 2: Mike Reupert, Hubertus, Wis., Milwaukee Region, Nostendo 1
-Spec Miata: Jim Drago, Memphis, Tenn., Mid South Region, Mazda Miata
-Spec Racer Ford 3: John Black, Olympic Valley, Calif., San Francisco Region, Spec Racer Ford
-Super Touring Lite: Garret Dunn, Commerce Township, Mich., Detroit Region, Honda CRX Si
-Super Touring Under: Rob Huffmaster, Clarkston, Mich., Detroit Region, Honda S2000
-Touring 1: Bill Baten, Indianapolis, Ind., Indianapolis Region, Chevrolet Camaro
-Touring 2: Michael Lavigne, Hooksett, N.H., New England Region, Ford Mustang GT
-Touring 3: Dan March, Boiling Springs, Pa., Susquehanna Region, BMW M3
-Touring 4: John Heinricy, Clarkston, Mich., Detroit Region, Toyota 86

STE-CROIX, Quebec  – The American-Canadian Tour Jean-Paul Cabana 125 scheduled for Sunday has been postponed due to an inclement weather forecast.

The event has been rescheduled for Sunday, Aug. 18.

The postponement creates a new American-Canadian Tour Quebec doubleheader later in the season. ACT will sanction the $10,000 CAD-to-win Bacon Bowl 200 at Autodrome Chaudiere on Saturday, Aug. 17 and the $5,000 CAD-to-win Jean-Paul Cabana 125 the following day.

The ACT Late Model Tour is racing at Autodrome Chaudiere Saturday for the Claude Leclerc 150 to open the Summer Kickoff Series.