The 1996 Giro d'Italia was the 79th edition of the Giro. It began on May 18 with a mass-start stage that began and ended in the Greek capital Athens. The race came to a close on June 9 with a mass-start stage that ended in the Italian city of Milan. Eighteen teams entered the race that was won by the Russian Pavel Tonkov of the Panaria–Vinavil team. Second and third were the Italian rider Enrico Zaina and Spanish rider Abraham Olano. Silvio Martinello led the race for four of the first five stages because of his victory in the first stage and high-placing on the fourth stage. Stefano Zanini briefly took the lead away from Martinello following the third stage that featured a more mountainous stage profile. After winning the event's sixth stage, Pascal Hervé overtook Zanini for the lead for a single day, after which Davide Rebellin captured the lead with his winning efforts on the seventh day. Eventual winner Tonkov obtained the race leader's maglia rosa () when he finished the thirteenth stage. Tonkov kept the jersey for the rest of the race, except where he lost it to Olano by 46 hundredths of a second at the end of stage 20, but regained it the following day. In the race's other classifications, Brescialat rider Mariano Piccoli won the mountains classification and Fabrizio Guidi of the team won the points classification and the intergiro classification. finished as the winners of the team classification, ranking each of the eighteen teams contesting the race by lowest cumulative time of each team's top three riders per stage. The other team classification, the team points classification, where the teams' riders are awarded points for placing within the top twenty in each stage and the points are then totaled for each team was won by Panaria–Vinavil. Teams Eighteen teams were invited by the race organizers to participate in the 1996 edition of the Giro d'Italia. Each team sent a squad of nine riders, which meant that the race started with a peloton of 162 cyclists. From the riders that began the race, 98 made it to the finish in Milan. The teams entering the race were: Pre-race favorites The starting peloton did not feature the 1995 winner, Tony Rominger. The three main contenders named by the media included: Evgeni Berzin, Abraham Olano, Pavel Tonkov. El País'''s Carlos Arribas felt Olano was a contender,