Tour de France 2018: Geraint Thomas keeps yellow jersey as Magnus Cort wins stage 15

Magnus Cort made it back-to-back stage wins for Astana following Omar Fraile's victory on Saturday

Magnus Cort dominated a three-man sprint to win stage 15 of the Tour de France as Geraint Thomas retained the overall lead to take the yellow jersey into the race's final week.

Denmark's Cort broke clear with Bauke Mollema and Ion Izagirre inside the final 6km on the run-in to Carcassonne.

As the strongest sprinter of the trio, Cort duly held off his rivals to claim his first Tour stage win.

Team Sky's Thomas still leads team-mate Chris Froome by one minute 39 seconds.

Dutchman Tom Dumoulin is third overall, 11 second further back, with only four of the remaining six stages likely to determine who will win the Tour.

Relive the action of stage 15 as it happened

Following the second rest day on Monday, there are three tough mountain stages in the Pyrenees and an individual time trial to come, while stage 18 is a flat course and the final day is a processional run to Paris.

"It is rattling through quite nicely and I am looking forward to the rest day," Thomas told BBC Radio 5 live.

"I am not even thinking about winning the Tour de France. I am not even contemplating it.

"There are three big days to go and a hard time trial to come. I will take each day and each climb as it comes and we will see what happens."

Cort calls it right

With this stage being one of the last opportunities for the breakaway to go the distance in this year's Tour, there were multiple attacks and counter-attacks off the front of the peloton in a frenetic first hour of racing.

Britain's Adam Yates, now chasing stage wins after dropping down the standings, twice broke away but was dragged back each time, with a 29-man breakaway containing no threats to the overall leaders finally establishing themselves up the road.

Direct Energie's Lilian Calmejane made a long solo effort over the Col de Sie before he was caught, and team-mate Fabien Grellier countered with Trek-Segafredo's Julien Bernard.

Bora-Hansgrohe's Rafal Majka then crested the Pic de Nore, being used for the first time in Tour history, alone before he was reeled in on the flat run-in by seven chasers, containing two riders each from Astana, Bahrain-Merida and Trek-Segafredo plus Calmejane.

Those three teams shed Majka and Calmejane but it was Astana who played the situation best - with Michael Valgren helping compatriot Cort get into the leading group and shutting down attacks behind.

And Cort, who won two flat stages in the 2016 Vuelta a Espana, duly did the rest, leading out the sprint to secure back-to-back stage wins for Astana following Omar Fraile's victory on Saturday.

Sagan all but wraps up green

World champion Peter Sagan was again part of the break, claiming third place at the intermediate sprint to take an unassailable lead in the green jersey points classification.

The Slovak is now 282 points in front of second-placed Alexander Kristoff, with only a maximum 280 points available over the remaining six stages.

He pulled a record 100th green jersey at the presentation and now just needs to finish the race to equal Erik Zabel's record of six points classification wins at the Tour.

With the breakaway initially unable to drop Sagan on the Pic de Nore, it even looked like he might contest for a fourth stage win of this year's Tour before the steep gradients finally saw him drop back.

There was no movement in the general classification - Ireland's Dan Martin attacked at the bottom of the final climb and gained a minute at one stage but was brought back long before the peloton rolled into Carcassonne, 13 minutes after Cort.

A rest then the Pyrenees

After Monday's rest day, Tuesday's stage 16 takes the race 218km from Carcassonne to Bagneres-de-Luchon, including a brief 15km dip into Spain.

In his stage-by-stage guide for BBC Sport, Mark Cavendish said: "The breakaway could go to the end again. Or Team Sky might want to get to grips and put their dominance in before the big showdowns in the Pyrenees."