LAGOS: Former world heavyweight boxing champion Anthony Joshua has been released from hospital, state officials said 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 southwest of the country on Monday when their SUV crashed into a stationary truck.
He was slightly injured, according to the Nigerian police.
Preliminary investigations showed that the vehicle was speeding and that a tire had burst before the accident, said the Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Agency (TRACE) in Ogun State, where the accident occurred.
“Anthony Joshua was released from hospital late this afternoon,” spokespersons for the Lagos and Ogun state governments said in a joint statement Wednesday evening.
“Although he is heavy-hearted and emotional over the loss of his two close friends, he has been deemed clinically fit to recover at home,” said Lagos State spokesperson Gbenga Omotoso and his Ogun counterpart, Kayode Akinmade.
The two 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 his friends’ bodies were “being prepared for repatriation,” the statement read.
Nigerian police said both victims died instantly.
Mutilated wreck
Ghami was Joshua’s longtime strength and conditioning coach, while Ayodele was his personal trainer, according to British media reports.
A Nigerian newspaper, The Guardiana senior police officer was quoted as saying that the driver of the car had also been released from hospital and was being questioned by police.
The newspaper adds that the driver “could be prosecuted for dangerous driving”, without giving further details.
Joshua, 36, was admitted to Lagoon Hospital in Lagos, the joint statement said, contradicting earlier reports from a TRACE official who had named another hospital.
The boxer, a British national whose family hails from southwest Nigeria, is known to visit the region when he is in the country.
Lagos, Nigeria’s bustling economic capital, is packed with visitors from across the country and the diaspora every December.
Photos released by police showed the mangled wreckage 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 match with Paul was a fifth-round knockout loss to fellow Briton Daniel Dubois in September 2024.
