The 1995 Giro d'Italia took place in May and June 1995. It was the 78th edition of the event. The Giro began on 13 May with a stage that began in Perugia and ended Terni. The race came to a close on 4 June with a stage that ended in the Italian city of Milan. The race was won by the Swiss Tony Rominger of the team. Second and third were the Russian rider Evgeni Berzin and Latvian rider Piotr Ugrumov. Mario Cipollini won the event's first leg in a bunch sprint, allowing him to be the first rider to don the race leader's maglia rosa (). The following stage was an individual time trial that was won by Rominger, who also gained enough time on Cipollini to take the race lead. Rominger built upon his lead by winning the remaining two time trial stages, along with the hilly stage 4, and retained the lead for the duration of the race. By winning the Giro he became the third Swiss rider to win the event. In addition to the general classification, Tony Rominger also won the points and intergiro classifications. rider Mariano Piccoli won the mountains classification. finished as the winners of the team classification. The team points classification, a system in which 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 also won by Gewiss–Ballan. Teams A total of 22 teams were invited to participate in the 1995 Giro d'Italia. Each team sent a squad of nine riders, so the Giro began with a peloton of 198 cyclists. Italy had the most riders participating with 85, while were the only other nations Spain (28) and France (15) were represented by more than 10 riders. Of these, 81 were riding the Giro d'Italia for the first time. The average age of riders was 27.76 years, ranging from 19–year–old Sandro Giacomelli () to 35–year–old Giancarlo Perini (). The team with the youngest average rider age was (25), while the oldest was (29). Of the riders that started this edition of the Giro d'Italia, a total of 122 riders made it to the finish in Milan. The teams entering the race were: Pre-race favorites The starting peloton included Evgeni Berzin, the 1994 winner. Berzin's team, , also brought Latvian Piotr Ugrumov, a two-time Grand Tour runner-up.