A former Wimbledon King’s College School pupil will feature in one of sports oldest traditions when he rows for Cambridge in the Boat Race this weekend.

Kew-born Charlie Fisher, 21, will make his maiden appearance in the race in the light blue boat of Cambridge as they seek to secure their first victory against Oxford since 2012.

Fisher, who admits he took up the sport because he wasn’t very good at many others, believes his experience of rowing at King’s was instrumental to him making it into this prestigious event.

He said: “The skills you can learn at a place like King’s — seat racing, being able to row on the water that the boat race is held on and being involved in a competitive programme — those three things were invaluable for me and definitely helped me to make the step into the Cambridge programme.”

Despite his inexperience, Fisher has been able rely on the likes of returning blues Luke Juckett, Ben Ruble and Henry Hoffstot — who along with returning cox Ian Middleton lost this race 12 months ago — to guide him through the arduous training programme.

With each morning beginning with a 5.30am wake up call to be ready for training an hour later, time management has been a key requirement to stay on top of his training and studies, something which he attributes to his time at King’s.

He added: “It’s a very tough challenging programme but I think it teaches you some very valuable skills of managing your time.

“Actually those skills I first started to develop at King’s, there are quite a lot of parallels between the two.”

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