Xu competed for the Chinese squad, alongside his teammates Cao Shuo and Dong Bin, in the men's triple jump at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Leading up his maiden Games, he popped an outdoor personal best of 16.93 m to surpass the IAAF Olympic entry standard (16.85) by an eight-centimetre margin at the National Grand Prix in Taiyuan. Xu managed to leap a distance of 16.41 m on his initial attempt to round out the field of twelve finalists in penultimate position, just 24 centimetres shy of his season best (16.65) that he set earlier during the qualifying phase.