This study investigated the influence of the combination of an athlete's big five personality traits and athletic event (individual/group event) regarding competitive level. A questionnaire survey was conducted with university athletes ( N =857, 303 men and 554 women, mean age=19.7 years, SD =1.0). The results showed that competitive level was significantly lower when individual events were combined with high agreeableness and higher when group events were combined with high conscientiousness. These results suggest that the function of the big five personality traits differs depending on their combination with the type of athletic event.