LAGOS: Former world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua suffered “minor injuries” in a fatal car accident that killed two people on Monday (Dec 29), Nigerian police said.
Pictures circulating online showed a shirtless Joshua – a British national of Nigerian heritage – surrounded by what appeared to be broken window glass on the seats around him.
The circumstances around the wreck are “currently being investigated”, said police in Ogun state, just north of Nigeria’s economic capital Lagos, which throngs with visitors from across the country and diaspora each December.
Joshua “was seated in the rear of the vehicle, sustained minor injuries and (is) receiving medical attention”, the police statement said.
Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn told Daily Mail Sport he was on a family holiday and “awoke to the news of this incident”.
“We are trying to contact Anthony and in the meantime we don’t want to speculate on how he is but thankfully he appears OK from what I have seen in the images,” he said.
Police said the wreck, in which two people in Joshua’s car were killed, occurred around 11am, in the town of Makun, along the Lagos–Ibadan Expressway.
Nigeria’s Federal Road Safety Corps said in a statement that the Lexus Joshua was riding in “was suspected to be travelling beyond the legally prescribed speed limit on the corridor, lost control during an overtaking manoeuvre and crashed into a stationary truck … by the side of the road”.
Witness Adeniyi Orojo told Punch news Joshua was travelling in a two-vehicle convoy, and was seated behind his driver.
“The passenger beside the driver and the person beside Joshua died on the spot,” he said.
The police gave the same toll, saying the two killed were “passengers in the vehicle” who “lost their lives at the scene”.
The names of the victims have not been released, but a spokesman for the Ogun state governor said preliminary reports indicated they were “two male foreign nationals”.
Earlier this month, 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 prior to the match with Paul was a fifth-round knockout loss to fellow Briton Daniel Dubois in September last year