The purpose of this study is to identify negative coping strategies among athletes of various levels of performance (national, state, district, university and school), ethnicity (Malay, Chinese, Indian and others) and gender. Participants in this study were 908 Malaysian athletes, of which 502 were males and 406 were females. They were selected by stratified random sampling and had completed the Negative Coping Strategies questionnaire. The results show that male, district-level athletes who were of Indian ethnicity were the highest users of negative coping strategies. The results also showed that negative coping strategies enhanced performance. Contrary to previous research, the uses of negative coping strategies in this study were found to enhance performance in sport. Implications of these findings are also discussed.