Ottawa's Rachel Homan and Kitchener, Ont., skip Jake Walker captured medals Sunday at the world junior curling championships in Switzerland.

After leading the standings throughout the week and losing only one game en route to the final, Homan had to settle for silver in a difficult 8-3 loss to Sweden.

"We are all bitterly disappointed," said Homan. "We just didn't curl our game today. We had our chances but failed to take them or missed shots. We were not playing our style of game and gave them the shots.

"However, they played well."

Walker's rink beat China 7-1 to win bronze.

The Canadian women started strong before Anna Hasselborg turned the game around in the sixth end, when Sweden took a point. The Swedes grabbed two steals of two in the seventh and eighth and a final steal of one in the ninth end.

Sweden's gold was the country's first in 10 years.

"I played my best game this time," Hasselborg said. "We knew that if we just played our best, we were going to go on top. You just see the shots and you make them."

The United States beat Switzerland to take the bronze.

Walker's rink, meanwhile, took just eight ends to beat China.

"Our goal coming into this was to make the playoffs," said Walker. "Winning bronze is good for us. We'd like to win gold but this is a good alternative."

It was the first time ever that China had made it to a junior men's world curling championship medal game.

"We are young and we enjoyed getting this far," said Chinese lead Wenli Guo.

Switzerland won the men's gold with a 7-6 victory over Scotland. The teams were tied 2-2 at the end of the fourth end, 4-4 at the end of the sixth and 6-6 in the ninth. Going in to the 10th the Scots had the hammer last stone advantage.

"It's amazing. It's really the fruit of a lot of work," said Swiss skip Peter de Cruz. "We all played together as a team really well."

It is Switzerland's first junior men's gold medal title since Ralph Stoeckli skipped the Swiss junior men to victory in 1997 in Karuizawa, Japan.