South Africans may not find the Winter Olympics on their usual TV channels this year, but that doesn’t mean the Games are out of reach. With our athletes representing the country on the world stage, there is still a way to watch every icy, high-stakes moment as it happens.
South Africa (08 February 2026) – South Africans have learned to roll with a few curveballs when it comes to live sport but few things sting quite like knowing our athletes are showing up on the world stage while the rest of us are left scrambling for a screen.
The Winter Olympics are here, Team South Africa is there, and the instinctive fear was that this would be another global moment we’d only experience through updates and highlights shared on social media… and social media is exactly where a landmine of anger has landed over the past couple of days, as many South Africans have expressed outrage that the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics will not be screened on local TV.
The good news, though, is that this story does not end with disappointment. We can still watch it, and we can do so legally, accessibly and from the comfort of home.
MultiChoice, now owned by French media giant Groupe Canal+, told MyBroadband on Thursday that it would not be carrying any live coverage or highlights of the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics this year. Other local TV channels, such as SABC, eTV, and eNCA, will feature highlights in their news segments, but most South Africans enjoy watching sport live, so the initial frustration is understandable. The Winter Olympics may not dominate our sporting calendar but they matter. They matter because South Africans are competing. They matter because these athletes have worked for years to get there. And they matter because there is something deeply inspiring about watching human beings push limits on ice and snow, even when those conditions feel a world away from our own lived experience.
And yes, we know there are always “means and ways” in the age of the internet, IPTV and VPNs. But instead of squinting at dodgy streams or dancing around legality, there is a simple, above-board option that puts the Games right in front of you.
That option is YouTube.
The official Olympics channel on YouTube has awesome highlights and will stream many events live. Even better, many of those events are preloaded, which means you can subscribe, set reminders and get notified when your favourite sports or athletes are about to compete. No decoder, no special package and no late-night panic trying to find a working link. Just open the app or website and watch.
For anyone who likes to plan their viewing, the full schedule, event breakdowns and updates are available on the official Olympics website. It is all laid out clearly, making it easy to follow Team South Africa and dip in and out of events as they happen.
So while the Games may not be landing on our local TV screens this time around, they are still very much within reach. A few clicks, a reminder set and suddenly the world’s biggest winter sporting event is right there. And for South Africans who love seeing our own take on the impossible, that’s more than enough reason to tune in.
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