TV and streaming, start times, the best spectator spots along the course, where to track your runner, and what the local broadcast looks like in South Africa.
The 2026 Sanlam Cape Town Marathon runs Sunday, 24 May. Between the elite gun at 8:00 a.m. South Africa Standard Time and the final mass-wave runners crossing the line near Green Point in the early afternoon, it is the biggest single sporting event Cape Town stages all year, with an expected 27,000 starters and a global broadcast audience that is bigger this year than it has ever been. Eliud Kipchoge’s first ever marathon on African soil, an Abbott World Marathon Majors candidacy assessment, and a women’s field that includes nine sub-2:22 athletes are the three reasons the wider running world is watching.
This is the complete guide to following the race live — whether you are in Cape Town and want to see the runners in person, watching from inside South Africa on the local broadcast, or logging in from the UK, US, Kenya, Ethiopia or anywhere else.
TV coverage (South Africa)
Live coverage on SuperSport begins at 7:30 a.m. SAST on Sunday, 24 May. The broadcast carries the elite men’s and women’s races from gun to finish line, with a window of mass-race coverage in the second half of the morning before highlights and post-race interviews close out the broadcast. SuperSport is carrying the race across its South African channels and via the DStv Stream app for subscribers anywhere on the African continent.
The SuperSport commentary team typically anchors race-day with Robert Marawa or a similar lead voice, with athletics analysis from former South African elite marathoners and on-course reporting from the V&A Waterfront, Rondebosch, and the Sea Point promenade.
For SA viewers without a DStv subscription, the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon’s official YouTube channel is also carrying the elite race live, with English commentary, and is free to watch from any device. The official YouTube livestream is the most reliable single feed for anyone outside the SuperSport broadcast footprint.
Live streaming (international)
United Kingdom and Europe. The official Sanlam Cape Town Marathon YouTube channel is the simplest international option, and it is free. Coverage runs on a single English-language feed from before the elite start through the final finishers. The 8:00 a.m. SAST gun is 7:00 a.m. UK time, which makes Cape Town the earliest Sunday-morning major marathon of the spring.
United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. YouTube is the working option for all four countries — and given the time difference, that is the most realistic format anyway. The 8:00 a.m. SAST gun is 2:00 a.m. Eastern, 11:00 p.m. Saturday Pacific, 4:00 p.m. AEST and 6:00 p.m. NZST. Australian and New Zealand viewers get an evening race; North American viewers get an overnight one.
Kenya, Ethiopia, and the rest of Africa. SuperSport via DStv covers most of sub-Saharan Africa. Citizen TV in Kenya has carried major distance races in the past, and broadcast partnerships for the Cape Town Marathon as a WMM candidate race have grown across the continent year on year — check local listings on race morning for confirmation.
Everywhere else. The official YouTube livestream is the global fallback. If your country has a dedicated broadcaster, it will be listed on the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon website in the week before the race.
For viewers also following the European spring marathon circuit, our London Marathon watch guide and Boston watch guide cover the broadcast options for those races.
Start times
All times are South Africa Standard Time (SAST), which is GMT+2:
- 8:00 a.m. — Elite men and elite women
- 8:10 a.m. — Yellow Wave (mass field)
- 8:40 a.m. — Pink Wave
- 9:06 a.m. — Red Wave
- 3:00 p.m. — Course cut-off (7 hours from elite gun)
The elite men and elite women break from the line together at 8:00 a.m., with the mass field rolling out across the three waves over the next 66 minutes. The elite men are expected through the finish line somewhere between 10:08 and 10:15 a.m. The first mass-wave finishers follow about 50 minutes later. By 12:30 p.m. the finish-line lawn is full.
Track a specific runner
The official Sanlam Cape Town Marathon app (free on iOS and Android) is the best way to follow a specific runner in real time. Enter a bib number and the app pushes split notifications as each runner clears the timing mats — roughly every 5 kilometres — plus an estimated finish time based on current pace. You can track multiple runners simultaneously, useful if you have a group of friends or family in the field.
Additional options:
- Live tracking on capetownmarathon.com mirrors the app’s functionality in a browser, with a map view showing each runner’s last confirmed split location.
- Social media. Most runners post their bib number to Instagram or Strava the morning of the race. The South African running community is unusually active on WhatsApp, and many cheer squads coordinate spectator timing across the course via shared WhatsApp groups.
- Strava live segments. A meaningful share of the field will be on Strava — flagging your runner before race morning lets you follow real-time splits without using the official app. For more app recommendations, see our roundup of the 9 best running apps for Apple and Android.
The best places to watch in person
Cape Town is one of the easier major marathons to spectate, because the course is a single loop covering a compact geographical area. With a little planning — and a willingness to use MyCiti, Uber, or your own legs — you can catch the same runner at multiple points along the route. These are the highest-impact spectator spots, from the Green Point start through to the finish on Vlei Road.
V&A Waterfront (kilometre 3)
The runners hit the V&A Waterfront just before kilometre 3, and the crowds here are dense from the elite gun onward. The Waterfront is within walking distance of most central accommodation, and coffee shops are open well before the elite men reach this point at around 8:09 a.m. The atmosphere is high, the field is still grouped tightly, and the noise off the water is louder than the road width suggests it should be.
Best for: a guaranteed first sighting of a specific runner early in the race, with easy walking access from central Cape Town hotels.
Cape Town City Hall and the Castle of Good Hope (kilometres 5 to 6)
Wide road, strong local crowds, and the visual backdrop television tends to linger on — the Castle in the background with Table Mountain framing the runners from the right. This is the easiest of the early spots to reach on foot from central accommodation and one of the calmer crowd blocks compared with the Waterfront. Elite men are through here around 8:14 a.m.
Best for: photographing your runner with the Castle behind them.
Rondebosch Common (kilometres 18 to 19)
This is where the elite race actually takes shape. The lead pack thins from sixteen to eight here on the men’s side, year after year, and the women’s race tightens into a four-to-six runner front group. If you want to see the race that the broadcast will cover from this point on, Rondebosch Common is the spot.
Access from central Cape Town is straightforward via MyCiti bus or Uber. Allow 20 to 30 minutes from the V&A area depending on traffic. Elite men should be through around 8:55 a.m., elite women around 9:25 a.m.
Best for: seeing the elite race actually develop and watching the front groups break apart.
Sea Point Promenade (kilometres 35 to 40)
The visual highlight of the entire morning. The course runs along the Sea Point promenade with the Atlantic on the right and Lion’s Head and Table Mountain on the left. The road is flat, the crowds are deep, and the Sunday-brunch terraces along Beach Road turn into impromptu cheer stations.
Most runners will pass between 10:00 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Elite men come through this section around 9:50 a.m. on the way to a 10:08 a.m. finish. Park near the promenade, walk in, and find a spot in front of one of the cafés.
Best for: the iconic Cape Town backdrop and seeing your runner in the closing 7 kilometres when crowd support matters most. For the full course layout, see our mile-by-mile breakdown of the Cape Town Marathon course.
The finish at Green Point (kilometre 42.2)
The finish area opens to spectators by 10:00 a.m., about eight minutes before the elite men are expected through. The Family Meeting Area, organised alphabetically by surname on the Vlei Road lawn, is the easiest spot to wait for a runner after they cross the line.
Tickets to dedicated grandstand seating along the finish chute are available through the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon website and through some of the tour-operator entry packages.
Best for: meeting your runner after the finish, the finish-line photograph, and the post-race village atmosphere.
Multi-point spectating
If you want to catch one runner at multiple points, the Cape Town course rewards a few specific combinations. The route loops back toward the coast for the closing miles, which makes one-spot-to-finish a realistic plan.
- V&A Waterfront (KM 3) → Sea Point Promenade (KM 37). Walk along the Promenade route — about 35 minutes — after catching your runner at kilometre 3. Timing is comfortable for any runner pacing a four-hour or slower marathon.
- City Hall (KM 5) → Sea Point Promenade (KM 37). MyCiti or Uber to Sea Point after the early sighting. Roughly 40 minutes of buffer for most pacing groups.
- Rondebosch Common (KM 18) → Finish at Green Point. Uber back to the V&A or Green Point in 25 to 35 minutes depending on race-day road closures. This is the cleanest two-spot plan for a runner you are pacing through the finish.
Travel and road closures
Roads in central Cape Town close progressively from 5:30 a.m. onwards on race morning. Private vehicles will not be permitted near the start zone in Green Point after 6:30 a.m. Spectator parking is available at the V&A Waterfront and a handful of MyCiti park-and-ride sites; expect demand to be high.
MyCiti bus services run additional capacity on race morning across the routes that touch the course — Atlantic Seaboard, City Bowl, and the southern suburbs lines. The Sanlam Cape Town Marathon publishes a full spectator road-closure guide at capetownmarathon.com in the week before the race; check it on race morning for live updates.
Useful resources on race morning:
- The City of Cape Town traffic feed posts live updates on closures via X and the official City website.
- Google Maps updates with the marathon route closures on race morning, so re-routing through closed sections is easier than usual.
- Uber typically activates surge pricing through the Atlantic Seaboard area between 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. — book early or use MyCiti.
