Adele Roberts breaks World Record for finishing London Marathon with stoma bag

BBC Radio 1 DJ Adele Roberts said “up yours cancer” after becoming the fastest woman to complete the London Marathon with a stoma bag.

The 44-year-old, who began using a stoma bag in 2021 after surgery for bowel cancer, ran the race in three hours 30 minutes and 22 seconds and was awarded with a Guinness World Record at the end.

The official Guinness World Record’s Twitter account shared a picture of the DJ with her certificate after the race, writing: “Adele Roberts completed the fastest marathon with an ileostomy (female) in 3:30:22.

“Congratulations, Adele!”

Roberts had a tiny replica medal made for her stoma, which she has named Audrey, which she shared in a video posted on her Instagram story.

She said: “We got the record. I was like ‘oh my gosh did we actually do it.’

“For ages I didn’t know my time because my watch broke and I couldn’t tell because I set off quite late…so I was just really hoping that I’d managed to do it.

“Thank you so much to everybody who was actually in the race, there was so many lovely people on the course and also everybody who came out the cheer even though it was raining.”

She added: “We did it, up yours cancer.”

On the eve of the race, Roberts shared a picture on Instagram of all her marathon running equipment, hash-tagging Rebellious Hope – a phrase coined by Dame Deborah James who died from bowel cancer in June last year.