Danell Leyva

Leyva was born on October 30, 1991, in Cárdenas, Cuba. His stepfather and coach, Yin Alvarez (famous for his impassioned sideline accompaniment of every element of Danell's routines) and mother, Maria Gonzalez, were both members of Cuba's national gymnastics team. Leyva's biological father, Johan Leyva, lives in Spain. Gonzalez and Leyva defected to Miami when Leyva was two years old. Alvarez defected by swimming across the Rio Grande to the United States while his team was competing in Mexico. They settled in Miami. ==Gymnastics career==

Junior Leyva competed at his first Winter Cup in 2006. He went on to compete in the junior division of the US National Championships, where he came 1st all-around, won gold on floor exercise and horizontal bar, and tied for silver on parallel bars. and at the National Championships won the gold medal on the horizontal bar and the silver medal on the parallel bars. He was chosen as one of four US male gymnasts to compete at the 2009 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in London. He qualified for the horizontal bar final, where he placed 4th. He rallied for event finals, winning gold on parallel bars. 2012 Leyva won medals in several events at the Winter Cup, then won the American Cup in New York City. He placed 2nd in the all-around at the National Championships in Saint Louis, behind John Orozco. He defended his national titles on parallel bars and horizontal bar. He went on to compete in the Olympic Trials in San Jose, where he came first with his combined scores from the Visa Championships and the two days of Trials. This secured him an automatic berth on the US Olympic Team, alongside Orozco, who finished in second place overall. The next day, it was announced that Leyva and Orozco would be joined in London by Jonathan Horton, Sam Mikulak and Jake Dalton, with their 2011 Worlds teammates Alex Naddour, Steven Legendre and Chris Brooks as alternates. Leyva earned the bronze medal in the individual all-around at the Olympics. 2016 Leyva, originally an alternate, was added to the 2016 US Olympic Team in July 2016, following the withdrawal of Orozco due to an ACL injury. On August 6, 2016, the men's team qualified for the team final in second place. Leyva qualified individually for individual event finals in both parallel bars and horizontal bar. On August 16, Danell won silver in the Olympic men's parallel bar final with a score of 15.900. About an hour and a half later, he won another silver in the horizontal bar final, scoring 15.500. Despite being originally named as an alternate to the team, Leyva is the only member to walk away with two medals, contributing to the US men's gymnastics team's total of three medals, along with Naddour's bronze on the pommel horse. ==Personal life==

In 2013, Leyva signed a multi-year sponsorship agreement with Adidas Gymnastics. Fellow US Olympic Team members Jake Dalton, McKayla Maroney and Jordyn Wieber were also sponsored by Adidas. Leyva has a sister, Dayanis Mesa, who is a television host. After ending his career in gymnastics, Leyva began to pursue an acting and media career. Soon after the 2016 Olympics, he moved from Miami to Los Angeles to pursue this career and enrolled in acting classes. By mid-2017, Leyva had already filmed two television advertisements, appeared on a Nickelodeon show, and worked as a choreography consultant on Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Leyva competed on American Ninja Warrior in 2019. On October 11, 2020, for National Coming Out Day, Leyva revealed via Twitter that he is bisexual and pansexual. ==References==