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