A workmanlike performance in the final race saw the Cork pairing pull themselves up from the early teens to first place with a round to go in shifty conditions.
"We went round the top mark in the early teens," said O'Leary, "and down the run we stayed on when lots gybed off.
"The hardest thing to do was to stay on the breeze," he said. The pair rose to third by the leeward gate, and elected to go right.
"On the second beat we just tried to stay clear. There was a bunch around us, and we tried to stay right of them. We ended up with an American (Merriman/Sharp) and rounded ahead. It was nice, at the bottom we were 20 lengths ahead and we just did some covering up the last beat."
The pair were delighted to return to form, having broken a mast in race four, which cost them a top five result that would have propelled them into the top ten in their first worlds.
"We were pretty low after busting the mast the other day. We probably had it a bit too forward, then a gust came, and the masts are just a joke on these things."
Meanwhile, Treacy and Shanks finished the last race solidly in 26th, retaining their 14th place overall, three places ahead of the Cork/Bangor pairing, and good enough to obtain that crucial Olympic slot for Ireland, just rewards for a long campaign by the pair.
The performance of O'Leary and Milne, however has caught the eye of the funding body, the Irish Sports Council, who issued an immediate statement saying it "shows great promise for the future".
"Only for the broken mast in high winds on Tuesday the Cork man and his crew man from Bangor, Co Down, would have had secured a top ten finish in their first senior worlds."
However, with the future of the Star at the Olympic Games in serious doubt, the question is just who the various authorities in the ISA will select to send to China as what could be the last Irish Star crew to ever sail in the Games.
The rise of O'Leary and Milne, while meteoric, has come late in the day, and their overall position at the Worlds would not have qualified the nation, allowing Canada sneak in. The pair were initially eyeing up a slot at the 2012 games. The team of Treacy and Shanks, on the other hand, have put in a long campaign, and eventually did the job of qualifying the nation this week.
The decision on who to send to Qingdao rests with a combination of the ISA's coaches, Olympic Steering Group (OSG), and ultimately the board of directors. The coaching staff take all factors into consideration, including who is likely to do best at Qingdao, personal appraisal of the potential success of the candidate, results to date and other relevant input. They then make their recommendation to the OSG (by April 30), which is under no obligation to stick with the final decision of the coaches. The OSG, in turn, makes its recommendation to the ISA's board of directors , which is similarly unfettered by the OSG's recommendation. Thus, the call on the final nominee is a subjective one, and still very much uncertain.
In fact, it's a joke within the Star class that if you ask any three of the hopeful crews how the nomination is made, you'll get three different answers.
"I don't know, to be honest with you," said O'Leary yesterday, when asked who would be going to Qingdao.
"The ISA haven't told us that much.Tomorrow we load a container to send to China. We're going there to train anyway. We've been training with Iain Percy (GBR). He's had the worst event of his life - a black flag and a broken cap shroud - he's had a proverbial shocker. I wouldn't talk to him right now - he'd bite the head off ya."
6th and final race, final standings
Max Treacy & Anthony Shanks, 26th, 91 points, overall 14th
Peter O'Leary & Stephen Milne, 1st, 97 points, overall 17th
Maurice 'Prof' O'Connell & Ben Cooke, 51st, 215 points, overall 49th
