He indicated himself as an elite jumper in the 2018 season, starting with a jump of at an American meeting in Kent, Ohio. He backed this up with a performance at the top level Madrid Indoor Meeting in February, winning with a world-leading mark of ahead of former world and Olympic champion Nelson Évora. These performances qualified him for the 2018 IAAF World Indoor Championships and in the final he took the lead in round two with a clearance of . He improved further to , two centimetres short of the new leader Will Claye, and left with a silver medal from his senior global debut.