There is still an 8 point margin from Papadakis/Cizeron, which supports the assertion by Cathlen that they are not going to challenge for gold, at least not yet.
And considering that Sinitsina/Katsalapov basically tied them in the FD, a lock for silver shouldn’t be assumed.
They did lose two full points on the spin level, which would have made the margin bigger with S/K. The judges gave them the components. It's not a lock for silver, but people keep saying that the program will hurt them, and that's not the message the judges are giving at all. Their PCS were very high here. And of course the GOEs were excellent.