The International Women's Volleyball Tournament, LienVietPostBank Cup, is scheduled to kick off on May 19 and continue until May 26 in the northern province of Bac Ninh.

The annual tournament will attract the participation of four strong domestic teams and four foreign teams.

They will be divided into two groups. Group A consists of China's Shandong, Sri Lanka, VTV Binh Dien-Long An and LienVietPostBank, while Group B includes Vietinbank, Vietsopetro, China's Sichuan and Thailand.

Teams will compete in a round-robin tournament to determine the top four teams that will play in the semi-finals.

This year's event has prizes worth a total of US$40,000 up for grabs. The winner will get a cash prize of $15,000, while the runner up will receive $10,000 and third place will walk away with $6,000.

In addition, the event's organisers will give seven individual awards with a total cash value of $2,000.

This is third consecutive time LienVietPostBank has sponsored the event, which will be televised live on the ThethaoTV channel.

"The tournament will give Vietnamese women's volleyballers a chance to hone their skills by competing with foreign teams and it also helps popularise Vietnamese people and the country to the world," said Tran Duc Phan, general secretary of the Viet Nam Volleyball Federation, at a press briefing yesterday.-VNS