Police are still working day and night to hunt down the man who shot former heavyweight champion Corrie Sanders.

No one has been arrested since Sanders was shot near the Northwest town of Brits on Saturday but brigadier Thulani Ngubane has told the news media the search for the three gunmen is continuing “round the clock”.

Sanders was among a number of leading SA sportsmen who have been shot during criminal activities.

Another former boxer, Richard Smith, was shot dead at his home south of Johannesburg few years ago.

Mzukisi Sikali, also an outstanding boxer, was stabbed to death in 2005. And Louis Vorster, an outstanding cricketer, was gunned down near Honeydew earlier this year.

Andrew Hall, also a prominent cricketer, and former Springbok Gerrie Germishuys, survived serious gunshot wounds. Legendary Springbok loose forward Jan Ellis has also been attacked and seriously injured on his farm near Pretoria.

Former Springbok captains Naas Botha and John Smit, former heavyweight boxer Callie Knoetze and Harold Volbrecht, who trained Sanders, are among the many former sports stars who have paid tribute to the golf-loving Sanders.

Volbrecht is said to be distraught. He was at Emperors Palace near Kempton Park, getting his boxers ready for a big tournament, when Sanders was shot.

LAY ACROSS HIS DAUGHTER

While SA sport in general and boxing in particular mourned the death of the hugely popular Sanders, it has emerged that the former champion lay across his 15-year-old daughter Marinique while the robbers were shooting randomly at guests at the restaurant where they were attending a family member’s 21st birthday.

Beeld reported on Monday that Sanders, who died of a stomach wound at Kalafong hospital on Sunday morning, had whispered to Marinique to pretend she was dead.

She, and all the other youngsters at the party, escaped unharmed.

Witnesses say the robbers fled when a vehicle’s alarm went off in the car park. They took some personal belongings, mostly cellphones from the nearly 50 people at the restaurant.

The robbers carried pistols and it has been reported that 9mm cartridges were found at the scene. Sanders was the only person hit by a bullet.