How to watch the Winter Olympics in South Africa – MyBroadband

DStv’s SuperSport will not have any 2026 Winter Olympics coverage, which leaves South Africans who want to watch the games with no choice but to circumvent geoblocking or use pirate IPTV services.

MultiChoice, now owned by French media giant Groupe Canal+, told MyBroadband on Thursday that it wouldn’t carry any live coverage or highlights of the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics this year.

MyBroadband had been contacted by several DStv subscribers looking for coverage of Olympic events held before the opening ceremony at 21:00 on Friday, 6 February 2026.

After not sending a team to the Winter Olympics since 2018, South Africa has sent its largest-ever winter sports delegation to the games this year.

South Africa has five people competing in the Winter Olympics this year: two in alpine skiing, one in cross-country skiing, one in freestyle skiing, and one in skeleton.

Lara Markthaler has made local headlines as one of the youngest women in the field, celebrating her 19th birthday when she competes in the giant slalom on 15 February. She has also qualified for slalom.

Nicole Burger is the first South African woman to qualify in Skeleton, while Matt Smith qualified for cross-country skiing in just two years.

Malica Malherbe will represent South Africa in freestyle skiing, and 17-year-old Thomas Weir is another up-and-comer in alpine skiing alongside Markthaler.

There is currently no official South African media rights holder for the event listed on the Olympics website. It merely states “TBC”.

With no legal way to watch the games in South Africa, avid sports fans in South Africa will no doubt turn to alternative, frowned-upon or outright unlawful methods to stream the Winter Olympics.

While there will no doubt be free pirate streams or subscription pirate IPTV services that offer channels showing the games, we cannot recommend those options in good conscience.

Pirate streaming services are often part of larger criminal enterprises, and there are security risks when accessing their websites or providing them your credit card details.

However, several legitimate and well-reputed VPN services offer ways to circumvent geographic restrictions on streaming services.

Testing legitimate free streams from the UK and Canada

MyBroadband tested ProtonVPN and NordVPN to access two of the most promising official international streams: BBC iPlayer and Canada’s CBC Gem.

ProtonVPN has a free tier, but to choose a specific country, you must have a Proton VPN Plus subscription for $9.99 (R162) per month, $47.88 per year, or $71.76 for two years.

Unfortunately, ProtonVPN did not work with BBC iPlayer during our testing. Attempting to play a video resulted in an error.

CBC Gem worked with ProtonVPN, but the performance was poor. The video would pixellate and buffer, and occasionally completely stop playing.

NordVPN performed much better, but is also more expensive than ProtonVPN. A Basic plan costs $12.99 (R210) per month, $51.48 per year, and $64.56 for two years, excluding VAT.

Our testing also revealed that CBC live coverage of most events on the first day of the Olympics before the opening ceremony, whereas the BBC did not.

It remains to be seen whether the BBC’s live coverage will become more comprehensive in the coming days.

The BBC is also technically off-limits to anyone without a valid UK TV Licence. However, it does not have a mechanism to check whether you hold one, other than an honour system.

In addition to the BBC and CBC, which offer free streams to residents of their respective countries, another option for South Africans is to subscribe to HBO Max. However, this is more costly and complex.