The former inline speed skater has swapped the wheels for the blades and placed 12th at the International Skating Union Neo-Senior World Cup in Inazell, Germany, last weekend.
The Dunedin skater was "pretty stoked" to secure a good finish in 5min 36.79sec in the 10-lap mass start.
"A little annoyed that it’s so close to a top-10 because that sounds a little better, but I’ve only been speed skating long track for two months, so can’t complain too much," McCormack said.
"It’s pretty unreal to be in the situation I’m in having spent most of my life training on inline skates [wheels]."
McCormack (22) previously competed at two inline speed skating world championships, and several world inline cup marathons, but it had been a while since he had competed at the international level.
"The racing has been a bit of a shock to the system. This is definitely my best result racing at the world level."
Leading up to the world cup, McCormack has been training in the Netherlands, taking two personal best times and working on "bunch style" racing, which he found easier as they were similar to inline racing.
"Now that the pinnacle of the season is completed, I’ll use the rest of my time here to set times to come back and beat.
"The distances I’ll race will be 1500m and 5000m as I’m more of an endurance skater on inline which I think has transferred on to the ice."
McCormack started out on the wheels at 8 and was "hooked" from there. His family saw a poster to learn short track at the Dunedin Ice Rink, but when he tried it, he struggled to skate and wanted to leave until his mother insisted he stay.
"I’m glad she did because the combination of the inline skating and short-track skating gave me the fundamental skills to be able to skate on the 400m oval."
After taking time away from the ice during his teenage years, he returned to short track before taking long-track speed skating seriously last year.
He has his sights set on the 2026 Winter Olympics, and has been training with Peter Michael — who placed fourth at Pyeongchang in 2018, in the 500m — and other skaters in a bid to join the team pursuit at next season’s world cups and qualify for the Olympics.
"Hopefully, by then I can improve enough and get consistent results to go for an individual race as well.
"It’s going to be a huge amount of work to breakthrough on the level but with the way this first season has gone I think I’m up for it."
