Skate America 2014 - Men's Final

Unexpected shifts of places are not uncommon in the men's competition, but they can still be shocking when they happen. So we're off with Machida, Abbott and Brown leading. Let's see how they, and other top contenders, do:

It always baffles me that Russian young skaters, like Adian Pitkeev, choose extremely intense music to skate on instead of going for something that might be fun. The result is that they don't project towards the audience, but are rather closed on themselves, like they're focusing too hard to follow the choreography. Technically, he falls on the quad. His score: 135.94. Overall: 212.07.

From left to right: Brown, Machida, Nguyen
Photograph: Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images
North America

Denis Ten has stepped into a new musical territory with songs from New Impossibilities, a musical project filled with Arabian rhythms. I'm sure this program will be a masterpiece by the end of the season, but right now, it looks as if he's not practiced it enough, as you'd expect around this time of the year. He gets 147.56 points. Overall: 224.74.

Jason Brown looks exhausted by the end of his Tristan and Isolde routine and with good reason. He's so good at interpreting everything he gets his hands on that he could teach a class on it. You can actually see he gets involved to such an extent that he feels the emotions he's supposed to express. Unfortunately, he makes a couple of mistakes, the biggest of which is the fall on one of the triple Axels. His score: 154.42. Overall: 234.17.

Jeremy Abbott is an emotional skater and in times like these, it shows. He can barely hold back his nerves to land a couple of triples, but he is not getting anywhere near a quad. And when that happens, it is so distracting that you completely ignore the presentation. Not an easy one for the judges, this one. He gets 137.51 points. Overall: 219.33.

There was never any way that Tatsuki Machida was going to lose this competition, but as he skates to the famous Symphony 9 by Beethoven, the certainty of his victory is impossible to conceal. He has one faulty land, but who cares anymore? His score: 175.70. Overall: 269.09.

The gold goes to (or rather stays with) Japan's Tatsuki Machida, but the silver medal is won by Jason Brown, the master of presentation. The biggest surprise climbs on the third step of the podium - Nam Nguyen takes the bronze, proving he's the future of Canada's men skating.