Joshua gets discharged from hospital

LAGOS, Nigeria (AFP) — Former world heavyweight boxing champion Anthony Joshua has been discharged from hospital, state officials said Wednesday, after surviving a car accident in Nigeria that killed two of his close friends.

Joshua was traveling on Monday with friends Sina Ghami and Latif Ayodele on a busy highway linking Lagos and Ibadan in the southwest of the country when their SUV rammed into a stationary truck. He suffered minor injuries, according to the Nigerian police. 

Preliminary investigations showed the vehicle was moving at excessive speed and had burst a tyre before the crash, said the Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Agency (TRACE) in Ogun state, where the accident occurred. 

“Anthony Joshua was discharged from hospital late this afternoon,” spokesperson for Lagos and Ogun state governments said in a joint statement late Wednesday night.

“Though heavy-hearted and full of emotion over the loss of his two close friends, he was deemed clinically fit to recuperate at home,” Lagos state’s spokesperson Gbenga Omotoso and his Ogun counterpart Kayode Akinmade said.

Both state governments have been overseeing the two-time heavyweight boxing world champion’s treatment since the crash on Monday.

After leaving the hospital, Joshua and his mother paid their respects at the funeral home where the bodies of his friends were “being prepared for repatriation,” the statement said.

Nigerian police said the two victims died at the scene.

Ghami was Joshua’s longtime strength and conditioning coach, while Ayodele was his personal trainer, according to British media.

A Nigerian newspaper, The Guardian, cited a senior police officer who said 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 at the Lagos’ Lagoon Hospital, the joint statement said, contradicting earlier information by a TRACE official who gave the name of a different hospital.

The boxer, a British national whose family hails from southwest Nigeria, is known to visit the area when he is in the country.

Lagos, Nigeria’s bustling economic capital, is thronged with visitors from across the country and diaspora each December.

Photos released by the police showed the mangled wreckage of a black sports utility vehicle.

In December, Joshua knocked out YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul in a Netflix-backed bout in Miami.

The former Olympic champion Joshua has since been linked with a fight against compatriot and fellow 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.