RESERVE — Sarai Gaines is going to need a bigger basket.

For now, the 8-year-old third grader is keeping all of the track medals she wins in a nice-sized former Easter basket in her bedroom, right next to her dolls.

But at the rate she is winning them, it won’t be long before Sarai requires a new storage system.

Sarai has been competing in track and field events since she was 5, but already her basket overflows with more than 40 first place medals. She is winning meets and setting records across the country.

“This is just some of them,” she said recently to a reporter while trying to untangle them. “I have about 6,000.”

Not quite, but just this summer Sarai collected another handful after taking first place in the long jump, second place in the 800-meter dash and second in the 200-meter dash at the annual Governor’s Games at Tad Gormley Stadium in New Orleans.

She went on to a regional qualifier in Covington, where she set a new meet record in the long jump (13-1) and became the top 8-year-old in the nation in the event. She also finished second in the 800-meter run (3.07) and second in the 200-meter dash (32.33).

Those performances sent her to the AAU Primary National Championship in Orlando, Fla., where she won the national championship in the triathlon (100-meter dash, shot put and long jump), the long jump competition and advanced to the semifinals in the 100-meter dash (15.31). A knee injury prevented her from finishing the competition.

“It was fun,” she said. “I liked doing it.”

Sarai said her track career began one day after school at East St. John Elementary School.

“After school I was always running around the hallways and stuff,” she said. “Then one day the track coach came up to me and said, ‘You’re fast. You should join track.’ Then one day they had try-outs and there was another girl who was little like me and she said, ‘You can try out.’”

Sarai was just in kindergarten at the time, but she still wanted to try it.

“I always ran fast and wanted to see how fast I could run and stuff,” she said. “I just like to run.”

It wasn’t long before she caught the attention of local track gurus Mark Creecy and Stacy Bradford (current principal at East St. John Elementary), who encouraged their young protégé. Her mom, assistant principal Johnika Gayden-Gaines is the assistant track coach, as well.

This year Sarai is attending Lake Pontchartrain Elementary after ESJE was reconfigured to serve older students, but Bradford, who brought the track program to the school, likes to take the credit for getting Sarai started and giving the first pair of running shoes.

“She had a strong neck,” he said. “When you hold a baby up and they hold their neck up strong, they’re an athlete. If they bob their head all around, not. I know it sounds crazy but, I haven’t been wrong yet.”

Sarai said her favorite event is the 200-meter dash (because she likes being faster than everyone else), but she was thrilled to give the shot put a try this summer.

“I’ve been wanting to do the shot put so bad,” she said, admitting she was spurred by a little rivalry with her sister, Jai Gaines.

Despite her youth, Sarai is blazing a trail and already has her sights set on the Olympics and being like her idol, the late Florence Griffith Joyner, the fast and flashy champion of the  .

“She’s always asking me, ‘Mom, can I wear lipstick? No, you’re not old enough to wear lipstick,” Gayden-Gaines said. “But you can put lip gloss on.”