LAGOS: Former world heavyweight boxing champion Anthony Joshua has been released from hospital, state officials said on Wednesday, after surviving a car crash in Nigeria that killed two of his close friends.
Joshua was traveling with his friends Sina Ghami and Latif Ayodele on a busy highway linking Lagos and Ibadan in the country’s southwest on Monday when their SUV collided with a stationary truck.
He suffered minor injuries, according to Nigerian police.
Preliminary investigations showed that the vehicle was moving at excessive speed and had burst a tire before the accident, said the Traffic Control and Enforcement Agency (TRACE) in Ogun State, where the accident occurred.
“Anthony Joshua was discharged from hospital this afternoon,” spokespersons for the Lagos and Ogun state governments said in a joint statement on Wednesday evening.
“Although he was saddened and filled with emotion over the loss of his two close friends, he was deemed clinically fit to recover at home,” said Lagos state spokesperson Gbenga Omotoso and his Ogun counterpart Kayode Akinmade.
Both state governments have been overseeing the treatment of the two-time world heavyweight boxing champion since Monday’s accident.
After leaving the hospital, Joshua and his mother paid their respects at the funeral home where their friends’ bodies were “being prepared for repatriation,” the statement said.
Nigerian police said the two victims died at the scene.
Shattered remains
Ghami was Joshua’s long-time strength and conditioning coach, while Ayodele was his personal trainer, according to British media.
A Nigerian newspaper the guardianIt quoted a senior police officer as saying that the driver of the car had also been discharged from hospital and was being questioned by police.
The newspaper added that the driver “could be prosecuted for reckless driving,” but gave no further details.
Joshua, 36, was admitted to the Lagoon Hospital in Lagos, according to the joint statement, contradicting earlier information from a TRACE official who gave the name of a different hospital.
The boxer, a British national whose family comes from southwestern Nigeria, is known to visit the area when he is in the country.
Lagos, Nigeria’s bustling economic capital, welcomes visitors from across the country and the diaspora every December.
Photos released by police showed the mangled remains of a black sport utility vehicle.
In December, Joshua knocked out YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul in a Netflix-backed fight in Miami.
Former Olympic champion Joshua has since been linked with a fight against compatriot and former world champion Tyson Fury.
Joshua’s last fight before the bout with Paul was a fifth-round knockout loss to fellow Brit Daniel Dubois in September 2024.
