Substantial research compared between specializing and diversifying in a particular sport but few scrutinised across multiple sports. This study examined the developmental pathways taken by individual sport (IS) and team sport (TS) athletes from two Malaysian national sports schools. Student athletes (N=117) aged 16 and above completed the Participation History Questionnaire. Information pertaining to the participant’s main sport and other sports he/she was engaged in was obtained. In comparison with TS athletes, the IS athletes were found to have a significant later start for most of their sport-related milestones (p < 0.05). However, the IS athletes (M = 14.3 y, SD = 1.7) started competing in international competitions significantly earlier than the TS athletes (M = 15.3 y, SD = 1.1; p = 0.004, d = -0.72) and only the IS athletes reported competing in the Commonwealth, World and Olympic championships. Interestingly, the IS athletes (M = 2.5 sports, SD = 1.3) participated in significantly more other team sports compared to TS athletes (M = 1.7 sports, SD = 0.7), t(95) = 4.03, p < 0.001, d = 0.80, 95% CI [0.40, 1.19]. The results suggest that athletes who started specializing later and participated in more diverse sports attained higher performance level.