Orica GreenEDGE has announced that Simon Gerrans and Caleb Ewan will lead the Australia team in January at the road nationals, Herald Sun Tour and Santos Tour Down Under. Interviewed by Cyclingnews, team director Matt White explained why he selected these rdiers.

"We start racing on the first of January. It’s important that we hit the ground running but we have an advantage because we’re racing at home and there’s no excuse with our riders having bad winter weather or travel issues," team director Matt White told Cyclingnews. "Also, our sponsors want us to be very visible in these races. We don’t have many UCI races here so we have to have a strong presence at home."

Unlike other World Tour teams, Orica GreenEDGE will kick off on home soil. "Cycling is such a long season now so everyone has a break at some point. We’re talking about ten guys being out here so as long as it’s all structured well it does work for us as a team. We have a good idea regarding our Tour Down Under roster and we’ll sit down with these guys and talk with them. We don’t have the official line up yet but it’s safe to assume we’ll run a similar line up to last year", White added.

"Last year, we had Gerrans but he broke is collarbone in the lead up to the race. So we went in with [Daryl] Impey and he had a very solid Down Under but when you’re three weeks out from the first race and have to change leaders you don’t have too many options for selection but the team and Daryl had a super week, just not we wanted from our home race."

Michael Matthews, the other leader of this team, will follow a similar schedule to what he had in 2015. "Over the next week's during our two camps we will sit down with all our riders and especially our leaders and have clear goals for next season. Regarding those two, they have a very different start to the season, whereas Simon is hoping to start the season all guns blazing, Michael starts the season considerably later."

"They don’t actually do too much racing with each other in the first part of the season. And that’s because there are so many races in spring that you want to split the calendar with them. We want them both chasing targets."