Race rookie Magnus Cort Nielsen won Stage 15 of the 2018 Tour de France on Sunday, sprinting to victory over Jon Izaguirre and Bauke Mollema.

The trio had been part of an eight-rider breakaway that maintained a comfortable lead over the peloton with 10K to go in the 181.5K stage from Millau to Carcassonne. But around 6K from the finish they sailed ahead, making it a three-man race and staying together to build their advantage until inside the final kilometre.

That’s when Nielson held off attacks from Izaguirre and Mollema to seize the biggest win of his career, nabbing his first-ever Tour de France stage victory. It’s also the second consecutive win for Team Astana: Omar Fraile capped an audacious attack on the final climb of Stage 14 for his own first major Tour victory.

Overall leader Geraint Thomas finished safely with the peloton, keeping the yellow jersey for yet another day. He still leads by 1:39 over Sky teammate Chris Froome and 1:50 over Sunweb’s Tom Dumoulin in the General Classification.

Thomas and the main peloton trailed over the finish more than 13 minutes behind on what, for them, was a comparatively easy stage ahead of Monday’s rest day.

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