Cambridge was born in Jamaica to a Japanese mother and a Jamaican father. His given name Asuka generally signifies "flying bird" in Japanese language and has also been a city name and period name in Ancient Japan (see Asuka period).[2][3]
When he was 2 years old, his family moved from Jamaica to Osaka, Japan. He played football until the age of twelve. When he was fourteen, he moved to Tokyo from Osaka.
Cambridge then focused on athletics, running sprinting events for his high school in Tokyo and later at Nihon University, where he studied literature and science. He was fourth in the 100 m at the 2011 National Sports Festival of Japan.[4] At the 2012 World Junior Championships in Athletics he narrowly missed out on the 200 m final,[5] but he excelled in the relay alongside Kazuma Oseto, Akiyuki Hashimoto and Kazuki Kanamori – the team ran an Asian junior record of 39.01 seconds in the heats (the fastest of all the qualifiers) and were just one hundredth slower in the final, where they claimed the bronze medals.[6][7]
In 2013, Cambridge improved his personal best to 10.33 seconds for the 100 m and 20.62 seconds for the 200 m.[4] He won his first international gold medals at the 2013 East Asian Games by beating compatriot Shōta Iizuka in the 200 m and then teaming up with his rival to help secure the 4×100 metres relay title for Japan. Their time of 38.44 seconds was a new East Asian Games record – an improvement of nearly half a second.[8]
