A former Queen’s School pupil will be racing in the Cambridge University reserve boat today (Friday, April 10), just 24 hours before the women’s Boat Race will take place along the same course as the men for the first time.

This is also the first year that the women’s race will be televised on BBC TV, with presenter Clare Balding eschewing Saturday’s Grand National at Aintree in favour of the women’s sport.

Hannah Roberts, 20, one of the youngest members of the Cambridge Boat Race squad, is rowing at number 4 in the reserve boat, Blondie, against Oxford’s reserve crew Osiris.

The four mile, 374 yard championship race is at 4.05pm.

She left the city’s independent girls school in summer 2013 after achieving 4 A*s at A level, and is now reading Natural Sciences at Jesus College Cambridge. This is the second year she has raced as part of the Blondie crew and will hope to avenge last year’s defeat.

Hannah follows in the footsteps of Queen’s old girl Louise Makin, who in 1984 rowed stroke for the first ever lightweight varsity race, the crew of which reunited at the Boatrace last year for a 30 year anniversary commemorative row past.