Danell Leyva: Breaking Down US Gymnast's Event Specialities

Everyone who plans to compete on the parallel bars in this summer's Olympic Games shares a common fear: Danell Leyva.

The U.S. gymnast's honors and accolades are many: 2011 U.S. national all-around gold medalist. 2011 World Championships parallel bars gold medalist. 2010 Winter Cup Challenge parallel bars champion.

Essentially, he is to the parallel bars what Usain Bolt is (or used to be) to sprinting.

The Cuban-American, who finished first at the Olympic gymnastics trials in June, was brought to the U.S. as a young child because his mother feared for his survival due to his severe asthma. Now, in a few shorts weeks, he'll aim to cement his name in the record books.

Here's a look at some of the events in which he's guaranteed to excel.

High Bar

According to the BBC, Leyva believes his best shot at winning a gold medal will come in this event. Earlier this year, he tied for first on the high bar at the Winter Cup Challenge. In London, he'll have to compete with team member Jonathan Horton, who earned the silver medal in the event in 2008.

That shouldn't be too much trouble, though—Leyva regularly earns the highest praise for his high bar routine. The Miami Herald calls it "a showstopper." After the trials, the Associated Press wrote:

"

Leyva's high bar routine puts even the best circus act to shame, and is sure to send the guys in China, Japan and Germany running for YouTube. His routine is jam-packed with difficulty, one intricate combination after another. But unlike the rest of the world's best, he finds little ways to stand out.

"

You can see a clip of his routine below. Pay special attention at the 27-second mark to see an absurd flip. 

Parallel Bars

This is what Leyva is known for, as evidenced by his abundant national and world championship wins in the event. The reigning world champ earned the highest score on the parallel bars during the trials with a 15.85. And that was even after making a mistake which required him to heavily improvise, according to the Miami Herald's Linda Robertson.

Leyva's stepfather, who was once a gymnast on Cuba's national team, was befuddled by the change in the routine, despite the fact that it worked out fine in the end. Yin Alvarez told Robertson, "I was thinking, 'Oh, my God. When will this be over?'"

If Leyva can be that good without even practicing, it's scary to think about how good he's going to be when he performs his real routine at the Olympics.

Here's a look at what Leyva did at the Winter Cup preliminaries in February. It isn't quite as riveting as the high bar routine, but it's still pretty spectacular.