Following his overall victory in the Santos Tour Down Under, GreenEdge's Simon Gerrans became the first leader of the UCI's WorldTour individual rankings.

Gerrans leads runner-up Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) by 19 points, with fellow podium finisher Tiago Machado (RadioShack-Nissan) in third, 15 further points back.

Thanks to the presence of both Machado and Jan Bakelants in the top five on general classification, the RadioShack-Nissan team kicked off the season at the top of the team rankings.

The Luxembourg squad leads Movistar by 7 points, with GreenEdge one point behind.

Strong performances by the home riders, who placed five riders in the points - Gerrans, Sky's Michael Rogers, Rabobank's Michael Matthews and Mark Renshaw and GreenEdge's Robbie McEwen - put Australia atop the nations rankings ahead of Spain and Portugal.

The WorldTour now takes a six-week hiatus before resuming at Paris-Nice on March 4.

WorldTour standings as of January 22, 2012