FORT KENT – A Fort Kent woman now living in New York paid a record price Friday for a pair of gold Rossignol racing skis which were auctioned off during the Biathlon World Cup to raise money for youth development programs.

Phyllis Jalbert purchased the skis auctioned Friday on the Internet for $10,100, the highest price yet for the limited edition skis.

Ole Einar Bjoerndalen set a nearly inconceivable goal of winning all four biathlon gold medals at the 2002 Olympic Winter Games at Soldier Hollow in Salt Lake City, Utah. He also had won a gold in the 10-kilometer sprint at the 1998 Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan.

In an effort to increase youth development, he partnered with Rossignol and the International Biathlon Union to auction a limited edition, autographed pair of gold Rossignol skis at every IBU Biathlon World Cup in 2004. Only 12 pairs of skis were made.

“It just happened,” Jalbert, a Fort Kent native living in New York City, said at noon Friday in the biathlon lodge. “It was suggested to me, and I thought it was a great idea to do it in memory of my dad.

“He [Willard Jalbert] was an outdoors person who was intrigued with European outdoor ways, especially alpine skiing,” she said. “He did things in the out-of-doors that no one else did, like go to Round Pond [on the Allagash River] in the winter.”

Jalbert bid $100 over the highest bid price, $10,000, paid at eight previous auctions held in Finland, Austria, Slovakia, Germany and Italy earlier this year. The first eight pairs sold for $4,000 to $10,000 each.

The bidding is done on the Internet. The auction closed at 10 a.m. Friday. The announcement of the sale was made after the final race Friday.

Jalbert said the skis, already in a glass and wood case, would remain at the 10th Mountain Division Lodge at Fort Kent.