Yes, true.I'm a little late but here it goes:
I think Alina did great in her SP, it wasn't her best but it wasn't very far from it. However, I think we need to aknowledge that if Rika skates absolutely perfect like she did yesterday, there's no way Alina can beat her simply because her technical elements are harder and she's already getting pcs almost as high as Alina. So in the future, going face to face against Rika, Alina can only beat her if one of these 2 things happen: 1) Rika doesn't skate perfectly clean and Alina does; 2) Alina changes her program to introduce harder components.
Since Rika hasn't been consistent with her 3 axel, I believe there's still a (small) chance that Alina might win tomorrow. Let's wait and see. I must say it's a pleasure to watch both of them skate, what an amazing moment it is for the ladies figure skating.
But we never know..Skaters does not skate perfectly clean every competition...And Alina program, in my opinion, is harder because of the elements, it is such a complex and beautiful program. So, if she skates tomorrow as she did in Japan Open she has big chances!

Japan.

