Will the 100 m dash survive the car?
For chess, it's supposed to be a purely intellectual game, and even though there are categories, the top women can play with the top men. This wouldn't make sense in 100m dash where the Women world's record is beaten by highschool boys.
Essentially this places the entire human species in a second-tier category. Human champions are now good, "for a human". Humans are in the lower league and we must make sure they only play between each other because of their inferior cognitive capabilities. They are no longer competing for the genuine title of best chess player in the World, they wouldn't even qualify to enter the tournament. The World best human in history can be beaten by the equivalent of a highschooler machine player.
We have machines that can obviously beat any human runner but the point of the race is to race other humans, not machines.
The point and fun of chess will remain to play against other humans.
This hasn't quite happened yet but it's getting closer in the 400m and I expect long jump will also at some point have disabled athletes perform better than able bodied ones (Disabled long jumpers all jump off their prosthetic leg). The debate about allowing disabled athletes into the "general" events is growing.
But as you say, this doesn't seem to be an issue currently, and 2019 has been quite exciting in classical chess. I think right now there are more potential openings on the table than any time this century, as new engines (re)introduce lines that Stockfish didn't think highly of, and that can continue for quite a while.